


Damned If You Do

by DancingInTheDark85



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Friendship, Gen, Harold Finch Whump, John Reese Whump, Protective John Reese
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-16 18:43:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 23
Words: 60,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13642251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DancingInTheDark85/pseuds/DancingInTheDark85
Summary: Sometimes you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. When working a case, Reese makes the decision to put Finch above a number and together they get wrapped up in an international struggle for survival. With Reese still reeling from recent tragedy and Finch finding himself in a situation he'd never prepared for, they have to support each other to get home. Set late Season 3.





	1. Chapter 1

Damned If You Do…  
Sometimes you're damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

Chapter 1

Harold Finch came into The Library later than usual. He smiled as he shuffled up the stairs, carrying a pair of drinks, as he heard the low almost whispered voice of his partner. At first he'd thought the younger man had been on the phone but as he got closer he could hear what was being said, "Whatcha doin'? Hmm? Whatcha doin'?" and it became clear who he was talking to. He peered around the corner of the room to see the deadly John Reese sat cross legged in Bear's dog bed with the animal sat opposite staring at him adoringly. John had Bear's head between his hands, their foreheads pressed together and was talking to him and scratching him behind the ears. He pretended not to notice as Reese's foot moved to subtly kick something under the doggy bed. Harold shook his head, it looked like the ex-operative was covering up another one of Bear's book-related crimes. He just hoped that this time it was not a first edition. Despite his penchant for ripping expensive books to shreds, that dog had been so good for them both and as a result was forgiven most things. He made Harold feel safe, John feel human and kept them both from drowning in their respective loneliness.

"I know you're there Finch." John froze and then turned to stare at him. Bear turned to stare too, the pair mimicking each other, heads still together, which amused Harold, reminding him of that saying about owners looking like their pets. If John was a dog, Harold mused, then he'd be a Malinois too.

"Good morning Mr Reese." Harold greeted, as the ex-spy got up from the dog bed and smoothed down his suit, clearing his throat a little. He hid it well but Harold could tell the other man was slightly embarrassed at being caught being so soppy with their dog.

"I thought you were going to have a lie in after last night's exertions." Harold commented.

"Couldn't sleep." John admitted.

Harold frowned and studied the man in front of him. They'd not finished their previous job until almost four that morning, protecting a journalist who'd attempted to uncover a group of drug smugglers. John had ended up in a bit of trouble and Harold had felt it necessary to send the full cavalry running to the rescue. A shootout had occurred and Lionel had been grazed with a bullet. The injured detective, for all that he liked to complain, had actually finished the night with a smile on his face. Harold suspected the portly man of becoming swept up in the adrenaline rush that came with helping the numbers, and actually starting to enjoy it. John on the other hand had left the group with that pensive frown on his face. Harold knew that since Carter, John had been increasingly concerned about putting their remaining detective in danger. He was still mourning the loss of the woman, they all were. He had come back to work a lot more cautious with everyone's lives but his own, and seemed to want to shoulder the blame for every little hurt that befell them.

"Do we have a new number?"

"Yes." Harold replied simply and wandered into the halls of the library to find the books that corresponded with the code. He'd kept the method of receiving the numbers to himself for so long, but now that the other man knew how it worked all that seemed a little silly. He knew that his need to keep his secrets had been logical at the time but it was so much easier now that the group had fewer things to hide from each other.

He retrieved the books he required quickly and came back to the computer. John stood over his shoulder, sipping his cappuccino as the web search gave them the person who belonged to the social security number. John's mouth set in a frown as the image of a woman in her thirties appeared.

Her name was Olivia Karola, a thirty-three year old mother of two from a housing project in the Bronx. Within minutes Harold had found the name of the care home she worked at as a care assistant and the name of her long-term partner and father of her children, Dan McKay, forty-two and out of work since a construction accident that had badly broken his hand. A quick credit check showed they were just scraping by, although John pointed out that considering the circumstances that had been a given.

"Look into this Dan McKay a bit more." John said grimly, both men already sensing where this was going. Sometimes their investigations were convoluted and complicated, other times the answers were painfully obvious. John grabbed his motorcycle jacket from the coat stand, "I'm going to head up there and check it out."  
***

John was weaving through traffic on his bike when he received a call from Harold. He could tell from the way the smaller man said his name upon answering that he wasn't going to like what he had to say.

"I think you're right about McKay Mr Reese. Before he worked construction, Daniel McKay was a Corporal in the Marines. He did a tour of Iraq but when he came back he had some trouble adjusting. I hacked into his files at the VA, it seems he was treated for over a year for PTSD and anger issues, he seemed to be getting better, got a job working with his brother in construction which he held for three years before his hand got crushed under a falling metal joist. This set him back with his therapy. He's signed onto welfare with persistent debilitating pain and has been living off his check from the VA for the last fifteen months. I called Detective Fusco who says aside from a DUI during his days as a Marine he didn't have much of a record, but in the last year or so he's been arrested five times for bar fights and twice for assaulting his partner."

John frowned. He knew now why Harold had been so reluctant to say anything. He was torn, his automatic reaction was usually to side with military personnel. He had more than enough experience of how hard it was for some people over there and he'd had his fair share of nightmares and difficulty adjusting himself. He knew he had a habit of giving leeway to veterans, let them get away with things he wouldn't tolerate from others. But it also couldn't have been easy for Ms Karola either, having stuck with him through that, and he was impressed that she had done. And no matter how much he wanted to believe in someone, violence was a step too far and he knew he couldn't be swayed by military loyalties. His thoughts turned back to Jessica, knowing that there was no excuse for the fear and violence that she had lived with in her marriage.

He didn't want Harold to know what he was thinking though so instead he replied. "I bet Lionel loves you for that. Wasn't he grumbling about taking a sick day?"

"He called someone to run a check for him. He's assured me the only thing he's leaving his sofa for today is to answer the door to the pizza guy. What is your plan Mr Reese?" Harold asked, trying to herd the man back onto the subject at hand. Harold disliked tangents, that was something that John had been unable to change in him despite almost three years working together. "I'm putting a package together for Ms Karola, money, tickets for her and her children, the kids are at school, I could send a town car to pick them up…"

"Not yet Finch." John said. "I want to talk to him first."

There was a pause, John could tell that Harold was trying to decide what to say, trying to decide whether or not he agreed with this course of action. Or perhaps he was trying to decide what his definition of 'talk' was, did he mean with his tongue or his fists? The hesitation was only fair, John conceded, as he wasn't sure which way this was going to end up either.

"Okay, I'm going to go over and keep an eye on Ms Karola at the care home." Harold said.

"What about Shaw?" John frowned.

"Ms Shaw can take the next one. Unless she's needed of course. It has been brought to my attention that I don't exactly give any of you any days off, so I will endeavour to do so when possible."

John smiled, "But it wasn't Shaw or I asking for a day off was it?"

There was a sigh on the other end of the line, "I have been informed that 'even Wonderboys and GI Janes need a day off once in a while', besides I don't think care home detail is really her thing."

"Well you've got that right. But when you tell her why you didn't involve her, I'd lead with that. Finch, I'm coming up on the address now." John couldn't reach his earpiece to turn it off through the helmet, but after a couple of seconds it went silent, indicating that Harold had broken the connection.

He pulled up to the block and parked the bike outside it. He took his phone from his pocket and fiddled with it, so that it looked like he'd pulled over to respond to a message. He kept his head down towards his phone but glanced up at the building. Most of these blocks were built the same so if you'd been in one you knew the layout of most of them. The apartment belonging to his number and her boyfriend was likely to be in the east corner on the fourth floor.

It had been a long time since he and Harold had worked a simple number together. For a long time now they'd been embroiled in the dealings of shady government agencies and relentless domestic terrorists. That was not what he'd come back for, and he was getting increasingly frustrated with being pulled back into that world. It would be nice to help a genuine victim for a change, and John hoped that if he played his cards right here that he could actually save a whole family.

He watched the windows for about ten minutes but couldn't see any movement. He checked his watch, it was just after midday. Ideally, he wanted this wrapped up before the kids came home from school, so he got off his bike and strode towards the building. Entry into the block was easy, someone had vandalised the door so that the electronic lock no longer worked. He swung the door open and entered the gloomy lobby. The elevator was broken too, so he took the stairs. John wrinkled his nose, the stairwell smelt of piss and weed and there were gang tags graffitied on the walls. It was far from the worst place that John had been, but it certainly wasn't somewhere he would have wanted to raise kids.

"Harold," he clicked on his earpiece. "I'm going to see if anyone's home."

He got to the door of the apartment, confirming it was the one he'd been watching. The door was old but had been touched up with a recent coat of white paint. There were a few semi-circular dents by the lock, which indicated that at some point the police had used a metal enforcer to bash it open. The enforcer had chipped the paint, which suggested the damage had been recent too. He knocked on it, trying to work out what he'd say when it opened but it didn't. He tried again, but could hear no noise from inside the apartment and there were no shadows shifting at the peephole to suggest there was someone there, so he got out his bump key and entered quietly.

"Finch, there's no one here, I'm going to take a look around. This door has been 'done' by the cops recently, suggests to me an escalation of violence." He gave Harold a running commentary like he'd used to. As life had gotten more complicated, and perhaps as Harold began to trust in John, they no longer talked to each other quite so much in the field. Shaw would have scoffed and accused Harold of trying to micromanage, and there was a time that John would have agreed with her. But John had realised early on that it was Harold's way of being worried about him, so he'd indulged it and had at some point come to enjoy the mix of brilliant insight and sardonic banter as he worked.

"Oh goodness." Harold muttered on the other end of the line.

"What is it?" A half-smile crossed John's face. The reclusive billionaire sounded utterly mortified by something.

"This care home. I told them I was looking for a place for my father… but I think I may have misjudged my attire. They're going to think I hate him."

John smirked, "You're saying anyone whose son wears a pocket square wouldn't be caught dead there? Well what did you expect?"

"Some level of dignity?"

"So what are you going to do?" John asked, still searching through the drawer, cupboards and closet in the house. He placed a couple of tiny cameras, one on the television which gave a good view of the kitchen and living room, as well as front door, the second in the bedroom, placed on the top of the closet. He used his phone to check the picture and angled it up so that it would catch people standing but nothing that went on in the bed. Reese imagined what Kara's reaction would have been if he'd done the same on a CIA job, she would have called him a 'Boy Scout' and laughed at his prudishness, but things were different now and he could afford these people at least some privacy.

"I think I'm going to have to buy the place." Harold said. John could practically hear his frown. He wondered, not for the first time, just how much money the billionaire had to burn.  
"Finch, when you looked through this couple's financial history, did you happen to see which one bought the gun?" He had knelt down to look under the bed and drawn out a shoebox containing a revolver and a box of ammo.

"Erm, no. Neither has a firearm registered. There was nothing in their records."

"Which is unusual for a Marine don't you think?" The gun was fully loaded so he emptied the bullets out and studied the firearm closer. It had been cleaned immaculately, which told him that it belonged to the military man rather than his wife. The serial number had been scratched off. "Definitely belongs to him though. He should know better than to leave it somewhere the kids can get access." He reloaded it and then slid it into the waistband of his slacks beside his regular weapon. There was no way he was going to leave it where it was to be used on his wife, or worse yet, to get found by their two girls.

"Harold, there's little else here. I'm going to hazard a guess and take a look at the sports bar a few blocks down."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Harold smiled as John rambled in his ear, even if it was distracting while he tried to introduce himself to the manager of the care home. The younger man was starting to sound like himself again, Harold had missed his friend's calm confidence and wry humour, he'd worried for a while he might never hear it again.

"But Mr Tern, you said that you were here to speak to us about your father, not discuss taking us over. I'm afraid we're not at our usual standards, you see a few of our staff are sick today." The woman said, flustered at his suggestion at buying the place.

Harold looked at her quizzically, a few members of staff being off sick wouldn't have changed the worn carpet and faded floral wallpaper, although it might have made a difference to the distressed old lady he'd found wandering around lost outside. He'd herded her in and passed her off to a bored looking nurse who'd gently admonished the woman for her walkabout and didn't seem all that bothered that she'd been heading towards the subway station.

"I understand that times are hard Mrs Clarke and that the grants from the government aren't as forthcoming as they once were. I was hoping that I might be able to change your fortunes." They walked down the halls while the manager explained how many residents they had and the kind of care they received, and Harold peered into a few of the rooms, pretending he was looking at the state of the place when actually he was looking for their number. He found her in the communal living area, handing out cups of coffee and tea. She looked tired and her mouth was set in a firm line, not the friendly and caring expression that Harold had hoped for from a member of the care community. Considering her trouble at home though, he let the thought go, surreptitiously playing with his phone in his pocket in order to pair it with that of Ms Karola.

He tried to stay interested throughout the tour, he was actually going to buy it after all, but by the time they'd gotten out to the dilapidated roof garden, Mrs Clarke had clearly noticed that he was distracted. "Mr Tern, can I ask perhaps a personal question?"

"Mmm?" he said. In his earpiece, John announced his arrival at the bar.

"You don't seem that… well you seem a little distracted. Are you sure you want to invest in our little home?"

"Oh, I'm sorry." he said, collecting himself. "I'm afraid this investment idea was as a tribute to my father who lived in a place like this at the end, I suppose I was just caught up thinking about him. You know this rooftop could be made quite lovely with enough investment."

"Oh," Mrs Clarke beamed, "What a lovely tribute. Yes, you're quite right, I've been trying to do something with this garden for quite a while, but I'm afraid it's just in my free time and running this place doesn't leave a lot of that."

"I'm sorry about your father Harold." John said over the connection. Once upon a time - back when they'd still thought of each other as Reese and Finch, rather than the much more intimate, and truthful names of John and Harold - Harold would have hidden any information about his past from the ex-operative, but now it felt good to have the man's condolences, even if the loss was an old one.

"Of course, you must be very busy." Harold said as they turned to head back into the building and back down the elevator. "I'm sure I've kept quite enough of your time, but would you mind if I sat and chatted to the residents for a while. It would be good to get their ideas on the place."

"What a good idea. Mr Tern you seem to be a very kind man, I look forward to working for you. Feel free to make yourself at home in the lounge, and if you ask Liv she'll get you a cup of coffee."

Harold scanned the living room again and picked his target, a lady sat in a seat by the window who was doing the New York Times crossword with a giant pair of reading glasses on. A seat with her would give him a good view of the rest of the room and could allow him to keep an eye on Olivia Karola. "Excuse me, is this seat taken?" He asked with a friendly smile.  
***

"Careful Harold, don't use all your pick-up lines at once." John joked under his breath as he slung his leg over a stool at the sports bar. He was two stools down from McKay, who had an empty whiskey glass in front of him. Judging by the look on the man's face, it was not his first. John ordered a beer from the bartender and then twisted round to survey the bar as he took a sip, his elbow casually leant on the bar, angled towards McKay but not looking like it was deliberate. He'd scanned the bar as soon as he walked in. It was busy for a midweek lunchtime, apparently the Cajun chicken was worth travelling for. Conversation was loud over the soundtrack of southern rock music and the clientele was a mix of casual and suit-wearing workers on their lunch break. It seemed like an odd place to go to drown your sorrows, but then it was close by and the beer was cheap and that probably clinched the deal.

John could hear Harold in his ear helping an old lady with her crossword and being scolded for being a smart aleck. He smiled and turned the earpiece off, it was too noisy to listen to him as well as concentrate on what was happening in front of him. Harold would have to brave the fierce-sounding woman on his own. He watched as McKay ordered another double whiskey and he wondered what his own opening line should be.

Suddenly there was a loud bang and the music stopped. Instinctively John leapt to his feet and reached for the weapon that was tucked into his waistband before he realised it was just that one of the bars speakers had blown. Taking a deep measuring breath he relaxed his grip on his gun and settled back down into his seat. He looked at McKay who had jumped as well, spilling his whiskey all over his hands. They exchanged embarrassed glances at each other at their overreactions and John saw this was his conversation starter, fleetingly wondering if The Machine had helped.

"Still gets my heart going after all this time." John confessed. "Here, let me buy you another drink." He moved one seat over so they were sat closer and signalled to the bartender. He could just imagine Harold's reaction to buying a violent drunk a drink, he'd probably use the words 'reckless' and 'impropriety' and he almost chuckled at the idea.

McKay frowned at him but didn't refuse the offer. John ordered two double whiskies, matching him with his drinks would create a notion of a shared bond, as would a suggestion of shared history. "You been back long?" He asked, knowing the man would know exactly what he was talking about.

"Few years." The man admitted.

"Yeah?" John continued. "Me too. But sometimes it feels like I never really left, you know what I mean? Where did you serve?"

"Basra."

John nodded with a wry smile. "You boys had it tough down there. I was there back in '03. It was a hellpit then and from what I can tell it hasn't changed much."

"Yeah?" McKay snarled, "You were there before those bastards ISIS took over. You have no idea what it's like now."

John pursed his lips but said nothing. He hadn't been trying to make this into a competition. If there was one thing he'd learned it was that everyone had their own war experiences and it was impossible to say someone had an easier time than you did, because you could never truly know. But McKay was clearly in the depths of feeling sorry for himself and there was no use in telling him that when John had been in Basra he had extracted a dozen Allied soldiers but had lost radio contact doing it. They had been ambushed and they'd been held under siege in an old hotel for nearly thirty hours until they were able to get to the rendezvous point, carrying the injured on their shoulders. He'd still been in the Rangers back then and was frequently sent into the worst of the fighting. It was less than a year later that his team had been captured in Kandahar and after months of torture he'd been the only one to escape.

"Perhaps I don't." He conceded instead. "But I know what it's like to come home feeling like you're not the man you were when you left." He watched the man's facial expression for cues, there was a slight flicker of something, regret maybe. For a second John was reminded of his own face.

"Who the hell are you?" McKay asked, his tone not as venomous as before.

"Just someone who sees something of themselves in you. I guess you looked alone and I wanted to let you know that you weren't."

"Yeah? Is that right? Sure feels like it. My wife and brother don't understand, they think I'm a piece of shit."

"Do they? Or is that you thinking that about yourself? Your wife is still with you? Got kids?"

He nodded guiltily. John gave him a gentle smile, knowing he was onto something here.

"Can't have been easy, sticking by you while you're struggling. She must see something in you that's worth fighting for. So what about it? Is she worth fighting for? Are your kids worth fighting for?"

"Is that what you did?" McKay asked.

"When I got back I didn't have anyone." John said. "No family, no friends. I was in a pretty dark place for a long time. But I found some, or rather they found me." He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a pen and piece of paper, jotting a number down in his precise handwriting. "Look, I know you don't know me. But here's my number if you ever wanted to talk."

"Why do you care?"

John shrugged and took a sip of his whiskey. "Once upon a time, someone made the effort to look beyond the mess I had become and offered me help. That person changed my life and made me who I am now. I just saw an opportunity to pay it forward."

McKay reached for the proffered phone number and played with it between his fingers thoughtfully. "I, er… I better get going." His voice suddenly choked up. He ignored the rest of his drink and stood up, grabbing his jacket and pulling it on. He left without saying anything further, clearly uncomfortable with the conversation they'd just had. John watched the man leave, hoping he'd said enough. John finished his own whiskey while he waited for McKay to get a good enough distance from him. He doubted that the man would be expecting a tail but he couldn't be too careful. It would have been handy to have Shaw pick up the surveillance, but he agreed with Harold, days off were a rare thing, and it wasn't as though he hadn't done this a dozen times before. He stepped outside blinking in the harsh light after the relative dark of the bar and glanced up and down the street, spotting McKay striding back in the direction of his apartment, hands in pockets, shoulders hunched against the cold air.

John began to follow him, when the pay phone outside the door began to ring.  
***

….SCANNING PASSPORT CONTROL, JFK AIRPORT…. HENANDEZ, EDUARDO… 01/07/1978… M, PERUVIAN … PASSPORT FORGED. NADEM, DAVID…. 12/25/1982… M, SPANISH… PASSOPORT FORGED

TRACKING ON CCTV…

ACCESSING MOBILE NETWORK…

CALL MADE WITH UNREGISTERED CELL PHONE 001 (315) 555-3679 … "Jefe, hope you had a good flight. Everything is ready, target is in sight and awaiting your signal for extraction."  
"And the cargo is ready to leave on schedule?"  
"Yes boss. Same as always."  
"Then you have my orders."

KEYWORD "CARGO"… SEARCHING SHIPPING MANIFESTS, CHARTERED FLIGHTS…

SEARCHING LINKS…

LIGHT AIRCRAFT… DESIGNATION ZP-OEZ… DUE TO DEPART LINCOLN PARK AIRPORT 1530HRS… BOUND FOR JUAN DE AYOLAS AEROPUERTO, PARAGUAY….

AIRCRAFT SCHEDULED FOR WEEKLY FLIGHT… REFERENCED IN 3 PREVIOUS CALLS MADE BY 001 (315) 555-3679

ACCESSING FLIGHT MANIFESTS….. DETAILS OF CARGO NOT SHOWN…

SEARCHING…. HERNANDEZ, EDUARDO, 01/07/1978….. POSSIBLE ALIAS OF… RUIZ, EDUARDO 02/12/1979… PARAGUAYAN NATIONAL… CRIMINAL HISTORY….. MURDER, EXTORTION, KIDNAPPING, SUPPLY OF CONTROLLED DRUGS…. LINKS TO TERRORIST GROUP "NUEVO AMANECER"… TRANSLATION… 'NEW DAWN'… BASED BOLIVIA WITH FACTIONS IN ECUADOR, COLOMBIA, VENUZUELA…

"NUEVO AMANECER" OBJECTIVES…. OVERTHROW CURRENT GOVERNMENTS… PREVENTION OF SURVEILLANCE BY STATE… FREE PRISONERS CONVICTED BY MEANS OF GOVERNMENT PHONE TAPPING/CCTV/COVERT SURVEILLANCE….

EXTRAPOLATING DATA….

CONTINUING TRACKING OF HERNANDEZ, EDUARDO… NADEM, DAVID….

TARGET PREDICTED… 78.23% PROBABILITY

CONTACTING PRIMARY ASSET…  
***

John glanced at the ringing phone and then back at McKay who was disappearing down the street. He glanced up at the closed-circuit camera outside the bar and glared at The Machine for it's bad timing. But the ringing was persistent so he strode over to the pay phone and picked it up.

The crackling voice sounded over the line, uttering one word that made John's blood run cold. "Admin." John listened for a second to see if there was going to be anything further to the message, but the voice repeated it again, somehow managing to sound distressed. "Admin!"

John slammed the receiver back down on its cradle and called Harold straight away, jogging down the street towards his motorcycle. "Harold?" He asked before the other man had a chance to speak. "Where are you?"


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Harold disliked the tone of his friend's voice. He was just leaving the care home, Karola had just finished the early shift and he was following her home where she was presumably going first before picking the children up from school. "I'm about to get on the subway, why?" He said, unable to keep his distaste at the mode of transport out of his voice.

"Finch," John said desperately, "The Machine just gave me your number."

Harold stopped his limping gait, just before he was about to go underground. He turned around and scanned the crowd frantically. "I don't see anyone. John, I'm losing our number."

"Don't go into the subway, we'll lose the connection." John commanded. "You need to find somewhere crowded."

"John, we need to follow the number. She's surely on the train now."

"I'll call Shaw, get her to pick up the trail. Right now you need to worry about yourself. I'm on the bike, I'll be there as soon as I can be, stay on the line."

The earpiece beeped as John tried to get Shaw on the line. After the third beep, her voice came on, surprisingly chipper, "What's up boys?" She had her mouth full. Despite the urgency of the situation, Harold still hoped that she wasn't sat at the computer while she ate. Feeling at a loss, he started walking, trying to follow John's advice and find somewhere populated but the area was mostly residential and everyone was at work. He could go back into the care home, but he dismissed that immediately. If whomever was targeting him didn't care about the casualty count, then he wasn't prepared to put them at risk.

"Shaw," John started. "I'm gonna send you an address. Need you to get down there asap. Our number…"

"Olivia Karola?" Sameen interrupted. "Yep, I'm looking at her. You think it's the boyfriend? Guys, why are you working a number without me? You know Bear and I don't like it when we get left out." The was a bark in the background as Bear vocalised his agreement.

"Shaw, focus." John growled, "Harold's number came up. I need you to get to the Karola/McKay address now."

"Shit! Okay. I'm on my way now. You sure you don't need me to get Finch instead?"

"I'm fine Sameen." Harold rolled his eyes at the overprotectiveness of his operatives, while at the same time acknowledging that it was kind of endearing. "We don't even know the threat is immediate."

"Dunno Harold, The Machine seemed pretty insistent. But Sameen, I've got Harold. I had a chat with McKay, I've been in and taken his weapon. Hoping that's enough to give him a change of heart."

"Guys, I'm gonna call you when I get there. Reese take care of our boy, okay?" Sameen cut the line, leaving just Harold and John again.

Harold was still walking away from the subway, when he noticed a male in dark jeans and a black coat following him at a distance. "John? There's someone following me." Harold quickly stepped into the road and flagged down a passing cab, almost getting run over in the process. He climbed into the back and slid down in the seat. "Er hello." He said, still managing his usual politeness. "I'd like to go downtown. The 8th police precinct please. Erm, can we just drive around a bit first?"

"Good job Harold." John sounded like he was smiling. "We'll make a spy of you yet. I'm tracing your route on the bike. I won't be far behind."

"I can't see how that's surprising, considering I've been learning from the best."

"Harold, what's your location?" John asked after a few minutes of silence.

"Jefferson Park, just getting on the FDR South."

"Okay. I'm catching you up."

Harold glanced behind him and noticed a dark SUV coming up behind them. "John, I… Could we come off here please." Harold asked the driver nervously. They started coming off the slip, turning off on the East 96th back into the city. Harold glanced behind him again to check on the progress of the SUV, and was that a motorbike advancing on them too? He watched the rider of the motorbike, sure it was John, as he drew a weapon and shoot out the tyre, sending the vehicle careening. Harold watched, horrified as the vehicle swerved in front of the motorbike, cutting the rider up. He was so busy worrying about John that he didn't notice as a second SUV approached them in oncoming traffic and swerved across into their lane, smashing into the taxi cab.  
***

"John, I…" Harold sounded nervous. John rounded the corner and followed him onto the FDR and down the underpass. He could see the cab and an SUV following it. The driver of the SUV was no longer being subtle about being a tail. In fact, it was gaining on Harold's taxi, accelerating fast. This was it, John realised, they were going to try to ram him off the road. There was no way he could take on the SUV on his bike, his only hope was to take the tyres out. He pulled his handgun from his waistband. It was tricky to drive the bike and shoot, right handed – his less dominant hand, while cutting through the traffic. He fired off a couple of shots, the first one hit the rear bumper but the second one hit its mark. The bullet blew out the rear tyre. The SUV swerved, cutting across John's path and almost crashing into another vehicle as the driver struggled to get it under control. John tugged the bike to the side to avoid a collision, hitting the brakes a little too hard so that the bike's back wheel came up. The heavy Ducati pivoted on its front wheel but the side tug that John had given it caused it to unbalance and tip. It was almost like slow motion as John realised with horror he'd reacted badly and that the ground was coming up to meet him.

He slammed into the ground hard, with his left shoulder the point of impact. His crash helmet was next, and he heard it crack as it bounced on the tarmac. The bike had come down on top of him, trapping his leg beneath it. Dazed, grey dots danced in front of his vision as he struggled to gain control of his body. The adrenaline was stopping it from hurting too much, but he knew as soon as he moved he would be in agony. He had to move, he realised, Harold could still be in danger.

He tried to push himself up, and just as he expected, pain flared all down his left side, leaving him gasping. He could tell his shoulder was dislocated, it wouldn't be the first time, and after a pathetic kick at the bike he realised he wouldn't be able to get it off his leg without help. He glanced over at the SUV, looking for a continued threat. It had careened into the side wall of the underpass, and so far no one was moving but he knew better than to believe he'd completed his objective. His weapon had gone skittering across the floor when he'd been thrown from his bike, but he still had McKay's revolver on him and he drew it now.

"Harold?" He asked. The phone connection still open but silent. "Harold?" He felt panic rise, he'd gotten away hadn't he? Or had there been another car? His earpiece chirped in his ear and he tapped it, thinking he was an idiot and that the connection must have cut out after all. "Harold? Are you okay?" He asked frantically.

But it wasn't the eccentric billionaire after all. "Reese, it's me." Sameen's voice sounded grim, instantly sensing the need. "What's wrong? I'm coming to get you."

"No." John groaned, "You need to stay on our number. I've got this." His attention was drawn to movement within the crashed SUV. He readied his aim.

"It's too late." Sameen said sadly, or at least with the best approximation of sadness that the sociopath could offer. "I just got here, the cops are already here. McKay killed himself."

John's heart sank, he'd been sure he'd managed to get through to the man, but it appeared not. He wondered briefly if he'd made any difference to him at all, or had he made it worse? But there was no time to think of these things, the front passenger door of the SUV was opening and a man staggered out. John aimed his weapon and fired, centre mass, now was not the time for kneecapping, and the man crumpled to the ground.

"Shaw, I can't get hold of Finch." He told her. "I took out a tail, but I've lost him."

"Sounds like they're trying to take you out." Sameen said. "I'm tracking your phone, I'm on my way."

Through the open door of the vehicle he could hear them yelling at each other in Spanish and the sounds of weapons being primed. In the distance, sirens sounded as the NYPD responded to the crash and the shots. John had to hope that he could keep the men at bay until help arrived. With his vision and hearing obscured by the crash helmet, and his concentration on the men in the SUV, he didn't notice that another man was approaching him until he tugged the collar of his jacket down and stabbed a needle into his neck. John shifted to take on his new attacker, but the sudden movement made his head spin and then his vision blacked out.  
***

Sameen had driven like a woman possessed to get to the Karola house, cutting her new black Mazda XR8 through traffic, not necessarily because of her desire to help the woman, but also to give her shiny little toy a proper test drive. But as she'd approached she'd had to slow down to avoid attracting attention as she was overtaken by a cop car with lights and sirens on. She'd pulled up just in time to see them race up to the fourth floor. She'd slipped in after them and caught a glimpse of their number, distraught at the doorway. She was crying on a female cop's shoulder and saying "he's in the bedroom." EMT's weren't far behind but when they arrived the cop exchanged a look and shook her head. All the urgency drained out of them. Whatever had happened, it was over.

Sameen was tempted to hang around but there was nowhere to do that without being obvious, so she walked slowly down the corridor, hands in her coat pockets in an attempt to look like she was just on her way to her own apartment. She snuck a quick glance through the door as she passed and could see down the hall through to the bedroom. John had said that he'd taken a firearm away, but McKay had clearly been determined. He'd made a noose from a tie and managed to hang himself from his bedframe. The male officer had undone the noose and was attempting CPR, but Sameen knew that the odds of reviving him were slim. She passed through the corridor and down towards the other stairwell. She had to get out of there before everyone else arrived. As she got into the stairwell she called John. Their conversation had her taking the stairs three at a time.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Harold woke with a gasp, causing a coughing fit that shook his abused body. Trying hard to get oxygen into his lungs he rolled over onto his back, his head was pounding and there was a chemical taste in his mouth that he couldn't account for. He felt a steadying hand on his shoulder, remembered that there were people after him and panicked, flinching away from the hand and scrabbling backwards. It took him a second to process where he was. He was laying on the floor, his hands cinched together with a cable tie behind his back. He looked up and momentarily relaxed, the hand belonged to John, who was sat on the floor beside him. He looked relieved, but there was something else on his hard-to-read face too.

He opened his mouth to say something but John lifted up a finger to his lips and signalled him to be quiet. He was momentarily indignant, why had he been tied but up John hadn't? But then he noticed a discarded broken plastic tie on the floor and realised that John had already started working on their escape. Harold looked around at their surroundings. The noise was a giveaway, Harold knew it well, they seemed to be on the floor of a small cargo plane. The sound was a twin engine, they were in flight. There were a small collection of wooden crates and bags down one side of the small space and there were two heavily-armed men sat on them. Thankfully one of them had his head back and eyes closed, presumably asleep and the other was tapping away at his phone not paying attention to either of them. On the other side of them was a large sliding door, and up ahead, the cockpit with a reinforced door.

Harold turned his attention to the men sat on the boxes. He didn't recognise them, couldn't fathom why they'd run them off the road and kidnapped them. He supposed it could be any number of people but they didn't look like Decima or government agents. He wondered if John knew, but he doubted it was anyone from John's past, unless they'd been going after Harold to draw the ex-operative out.

He glanced at John, the man had clearly decided to punch first and ask questions later, and as he was the authority when it came to being rammed off the road and kidnapped, Harold was prepared to defer to his judgement. He watched as John shifted into a crouch silently. As he did, Harold caught sight of his left leg, the material of his slacks had been shredded at the thigh, exposing raw grazes underneath. His upper body had fared better, the jacket was scuffed up but the leather had held strong, but he was holding his arm pinned close to his side. Harold wondered how injured his friend really was and what on earth he was planning on doing next, when John made his move.

John launched himself at the man who was playing on his smart phone, throwing a right-handed punch to his face and then snatching the assault rifle. He gripped the rifle with both hands and stepped into the gap between man and weapon, twisting it until it was wrenched from his grip. When John stepped out of the move, a fraction of a second later, he had the rifle aimed at the man. The sleeping man woke with a start and grabbed his own rifle, so John aimed and fired, a quick double tap, chest and head, the shots ringing loudly in the enclosed metal space. The man slumped back against the wall, staining it with blood, dead instantly.

"¿Que mierda?" [What the fuck?] Someone shouted from inside the cockpit, and the door opened. John spun and sent a spray of bullets at the newest threat, but they were tucked behind the bulletproof door and quickly locked it shut again. The bullets pinged off the door, ricocheting around the room. Harold yelped and rolled over behind the stack of crates, out of the line of fire. The other man shrunk in on himself, trying to become a smaller target. John hardly seemed concerned. The bullets tore through the airplane walls, letting in the freezing air from outside. The noise of the engine changed, suddenly it had gotten louder and there was a rattling sound and the air filled with the smell of jet fuel. The plane lurched and there were shouts from inside the cockpit as they struggled for control. Whatever the bullets had torn through, they had caused significant damage to at least one engine.

The remaining man, who John had his gun pointed out looked horrified, Harold didn't feel much better, but John's face was a mask of calm. "¿Quién eres tú? [Who are you?] he asked.

As scared as the man was, he refused to answer the question.

"¿Qué quereis con nosotros?" [What do you want with us?]

"No te estoy diciendo nada, hijo de puta!" [I'm not telling you anything you son of a bitch!] The man spat at him and then made a grab for a pistol on his hip. John was quicker, tipping the rifle up and smashing the butt of it into the man's head at his temple. The man's eyes rolled back into his head and he slipped down to the floor unconscious. John swung the strap of the assault rifle over his shoulder, snatched up the unconscious kidnapper's pistol and tucked it into his belt. A quick pat down produced a bowie knife and suddenly John was at Harold's side cutting him free.

The plastic snapped against the knife and Harold was able to pull his arms free. "Thank you." he said gratefully.

John gave him a grim smile of acceptance, but was still all business, reminding Harold they weren't out of danger yet. "I need you to hold my hand." John said in a voice that demanded he be obeyed. He reached out with his left hand and took Harold's hand in a strong grip as though they were about to arm wrestle. "You got me?"

Harold nodded, his mind only just beginning to process what they were doing when John gave his next command, "Pull!" Harold clamped his other hand over John's forearm and pulled as hard as he could, as John pulled back away from him. John gritted his teeth and grunted, which was almost enough for Harold to stop in panic at what he was doing to his friend, but John snarled out another command of "Pull!" and he did as he was told until there was a loud pop and he felt John's arm shift and jolt back into place, his shoulder relocated back into its socket.  
Harold felt sick at what he'd just had to do. His thoughts were so preoccupied with it that when John casually threw him a parachute he'd nearly dropped it. His fingers seemed to have gone numb, because he couldn't get them to work as he shrugged his stiff body into the harness. He tried to focus on them as he pulled the offending contraption into place, but all he could see was the rattling of the small cargo plane, the two men that John had taken down and the smoke that heralded the small aircraft's impending doom.

John was donning it like a pro, which of course as a Ranger, he had been. Lucky for him, because suddenly John was set and then his deft hands were clipping buckles and pulling on straps until Harold felt thoroughly manhandled and bound up like a parcel with string. He stared down at the complicated series of loops and metal fastenings wanting to check it had been done right. Of course it had been done right, he trusted John in these things implicitly, but even so, he'd been awful fast at it, it wouldn't hurt to look things over.

There was no time of course. As soon as John had finished securing his friend, he had grabbed the sliding door of the small cargo plane and wrenched it open. Their speed and the wind whipped the door from John's grasp and slammed it back along the rails with enough force to almost pop it off its hinges. The howling gale was suddenly let into the small aircraft and Harold panicked, looking for something to cling onto so he wouldn't get sucked out, despite knowing it was pressurised cabins that did that and that this wasn't one. There was military style webbing attached to one wall, which he fed his fingers into and clung on for dear life, too scared to notice the amused smile John was giving him.

"Hey Harold." There was no hint of amusement when John shouted over the wind and the racket of the destroyed engine. His voice was raised but calm and steady, the voice he used when comforting some of their more panicky 'numbers'. He stood in front of the older man and crouched a little so they were eye to eye, their faces less than a foot away from each other. "Harold look at me, it's going to be fine."

Harold met those steely blue-grey eyes and gave him a worried smile. "I've never done this before." He said stupidly.

"Well there's a first time for everything. Don't worry, I've got you." He gripped Harold's harness at the shoulder with his right hand and then used the other to prise the billionaire's hand off the webbing and instead settle it on his harness, just above where John's own hand was, before securing his other hand on the same side.

"What do I pull?" Harold asked nervously.

"It's just here." John pointed out the ripcord that dangled from the right shoulder of the harness. He took Harold's glasses off his face and secured them in a zipped pocket of his motorcycle jacket. "But don't worry, I'll do it for you. All you have to do is breathe."

"Breathe?" Harold started to ask, but as he did, John grabbed him and tipped them both out of the cargo door. The sudden feeling of falling took his breath away, freezing air rushed around them, he looked down, the world stretched out below, everything in minuscule and he clung even harder to the straps where John had placed his hands.

When Harold felt John let go with one hand, he started to panic, but then he was suddenly yanked upwards with a great force that sent waves of agony through his spine and John's remaining grip was completely torn from him. The parachute unfolded above him and Harold realised John had pulled his ripcord for him.

There was enough time to panic for his friend, still falling below him, before John pulled his own ripcord and the chute billowed out of the heavy backpack. Harold breathed a sigh of relief, possibly his first breath since leaving the plane. He watched John soaring just below him, the ex-soldier twisted the chute, directing it into an updraft and skilfully rode the warmer air current so that he came up towards Harold's level. Harold shook his head in awe at the number of skills his partner had amassed over the years. Parachuting was an obvious one, his military file said that John had over 400 jumps to his name, but to see it in action was something else.

"Hey Harold, how you doing?" John shouted over the space between them.

He wasn't sure what the answer to that was so he didn't say anything.

"I want you to look up," John directed. "There's a pair of loops for your hands." He waved his own hands in the loops for demonstration. Harold did as he was told, pulling his arms up above him when his back was so stiff hurt but he managed it, grabbing onto the loops. "That's it." John instructed. "Now to go left, you pull on the left, go right you pull right. Just like your light aircraft. There's a clearing over there." He pointed to a pale patch within the dense forest that appeared to have been cleared of trees. "That's what we're going to aim for. When we land, keep your knees bent up." He demonstrated the position for Harold, who nodded vigorously. "You got that?" He asked for confirmation.

"Yes." Harold replied through gritted teeth.

"Oh and one more thing Harold, try to enjoy it!"

Harold gave a quick tug on each of the loops to test them, finding they didn't need as much of a pull as expected to make the chute turn. Satisfied that he could do this, he looked at John just ahead of him and lined himself up to follow the other man towards their landing site.

As he manoeuvred he caught a glimpse of bright blue and looked out to the scenery beyond their destination. The jungle, thick dense forest spread out like a carpet, on his left and straight ahead it was for as far as the eye could see, but on his right he could see it give way to dusty plains, and a line of what looked like a sprawl of buildings before the land ended in perfect bright blue sea, the sun catching the water and making it glitter. Harold realised, despite the pain and fear he was feeling, this was just about the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

He was so filled with awe at the sight that he forgot to be afraid, fascinated with watching the scenery as it came closer into view. He wished he had his glasses on to see better, but he needed them mostly for reading and using the computer, his vision was better at long-distance so he didn't miss out completely. As he got lower, and he started to be able to see more details of the trees in the dense rainforest he heard a shout from John who was alerting him to the fact that he was drifting off course. He tugged at the chute and got himself back in line.  
He made sure to concentrate now, getting his chute tangled in a tree would be the last thing he wanted, so he watched John below him as he skilfully manoeuvred down to the clearing. As John got closer to the ground he bent his knees and touched down lightly, running a few steps as he decelerated, coming to a textbook stop, his parachute wafting around him as it deflated. He made it look easy, which gave Harold an unexpected confidence but as he too got near to the ground he realised he wasn't going to do the same. He realised just seconds before, that he'd brought his legs up too high, and when his feet touched the ground his knees just buckled and he landed flat on his back.

He lay there unable to move, just staring up at the bright sky and watching as the chute settled around him.

"Finch!" John called, hurrying to his side and crouching down by his shoulder. John's normally immaculate hair was wind-blown and sticking up everywhere and his shirt was a bit creased but he otherwise looked like he'd gone for a stroll with Bear, not just relocated his own shoulder and then parachuted into the rainforest. That annoyed and amused Harold in equal parts, he felt for sure he looked like he'd just been dragged through a hedge backward.

"I'm fine Mr Reese." Harold said through gritted teeth. "As fun as that was, my back would thank you if we didn't repeat the experience."

"I'm sorry Finch." John started loosening off the buckles of Harold's chute. "Do you have your pain pills with you?"

"Yes," he reached with trembling fingers for his breast pocket. John knocked his hand away gently and went for them himself. He shook two of the small pills out into his hand and helped raise Harold's head up so he could dry swallow them. He took Harold's glasses out and perched them back on his nose before he continued to help him out of the parachute harness.

"Just lay there. Rest your back." John ordered as he finished and eased the backpack out from under him before bunching up the chute material and placing it under the computer engineer's head as a pillow.

"I'm going to build us a shelter here for the night, get it fixed before it starts to rain."

"Doesn't look like rain." Harold commented, staring straight up at the blue sky. "You should sit for a minute. You're hurt."

"Finch, we're in the rainforest, it's always going to rain." He ignored the older man's concern and stood up. "I'm not going far." He reassured before traipsing off into the jungle.

Harold felt guilty for laying down on the job, especially as he could hear John grunting with effort as he fought the undergrowth to make some semblance of shelter, but his back hurt so much from being wrenched that he couldn't move even if he wanted to. The pain pills were working, but slowly, even then he guessed it would take the rest of the day to recover. Instead he watched as dark clouds began to creep into his line of vision, that rain that John had promised would be there. It was hot and getting more humid too, Harold glanced down at his outfit, dressed him his usual three-piece suit and shiny patent leather shoes, perfect for a brisk spring morning in New York, completely impractical for the rainforest. He was too hot in it, but with the pain he was in, it took a lot of effort to get out of it all, he settled for taking off his tie and undoing a few buttons. He was still too hot.

Eventually John came back to him, just as the sky had been completely covered with thick grey cloud. The ex-operative had stripped down to the white tee shirt he wore under his shirt, it was stuck to him with sweat and as a result was a little more revealing than intended, beads of moisture glistened on his forehead and on his tanned arms. Deep black bruising could be seen at his shoulder joint.

He crouched beside him and slid an arm under his shoulders. "Let's get you up." He said, as he helped the older man to at first sit and then get to his feet. The pain of the movement made Harold's head spin and he had to blink away the dark spots before his eyes, but John held him firmly and refused to let him wobble.

Once up, Harold could finally see what John had been working on. He'd torn the parachute to pieces and had used the cords to tie it up in a sloping roof, under which were two more pieces of parachute which he'd turned into hammocks which Harold eyed dubiously, unsure how he was going to get in and out in his state. Another piece of the parachute material had been tied lower to the ground, Harold guessed it was to collect rainwater for drinking. He was suddenly really thirsty, all the fear from earlier had left his mouth parched.

"Home sweet home." Harold said appreciatively. It was actually one of the last places in the world he wanted to sleep but he knew John had put a lot of effort into their little camp and didn't want to appear ungrateful.

"I don't want you to think I'm an ungracious host, but I'm out of food and beer."

"You mean your survival skills don't stretch as far as catching and killing with your bare hands?" Harold joked.

John tensed as he said it, just for a second and then it was gone. Harold could have kicked himself, after all he'd just killed a man, more if they were unable to get their plane under control. His reaction intrigued Harold, the man was usually so carefully controlling of his emotions that you'd think that killing no longer bothered him. He certainly had no reason to feel a special sympathy for the man in the plane, even Harold had been thinking murderous thoughts about him, so he could safely assume that John just felt a little upset about everyone whose life he'd ended.

The fact that Agent Donnelly had believed him a sociopath had almost made Harold pick up the phone and defend his friend to the FBI agent, despite the chaos it would have caused. He respected a lot of things about the ex-operative but the quiet but fierce empathy he carried was arguably one of his greatest features, all the more remarkable considering the CIA's attempts to destroy it. That empathy had never been clearer to Harold, as the younger man helped him gently into the hammock he'd made, it had been clear in the way he'd coaxed him out of that plane, and the way he'd dropped everything to rush to his defence as Harold had been kidnapped, again. He sometimes wondered what Mr Reese's choices would have been were their roles reversed and was almost certain the man would never have ignored the 'irrelevant' list like he'd once tried to do.

"I'm sorry." Harold said softly. "Do you have any idea who those men were?"

John shook his head. "The man I spoke to had an Andean accent, Peru or Bolivia maybe, I'm not sure, but he didn't say anything about who they were. They're well organised, and have training and money. Some sort of local militia maybe."

"What did they do to you? Where else are you hurt?"

John flashed him a look of embarrassment, "I came off my bike. It's just a few grazes and the shoulder. It's not the first time I've popped it so it doesn't take much these days. How's your back?" John asked, changing the subject.

That answer, in a way, upset Harold more. He always disliked the way John dismissed his own welfare and the multitude of injuries he'd amassed in his lifetime. "Improving. I'll be ready to go by morning." He promised.

John nodded. "We'll move out at dawn, maximise our daylight. We'll go at your pace but we need to make progress, I saw a road to the north of us, but it'll be a couple of days steady walk from here."

"Do you know where we are?" Harold asked, settling gingerly into his hammock, it was more comfortable than he'd expected, and now that he was in it, he felt an overwhelming tiredness.

"I can make an educated guess at the northern Venezuelan Amazon. If we make good time we could hit the Rio Caura tomorrow and follow it out."

"Venezuela?" Harold gulped. "Not exactly the most stable country we could have ended up in."

John shrugged, unbothered. "It's not too bad. Pretty in places. Anyway, if we'd gone much further south we'd have ended up in Colombia or Brazil and it would have been a much longer walk to the nearest town."

"You've been here before?"

John nodded, once, his lips set in a frown. Harold knew that was as much information as he was getting on the subject. John got into his own hammock and stared up at his bivouac roof as the first big drops of rain started to fall. Within minutes the sky had gone dark and the heavy rain thundered on the tarp. "You should get some sleep." John suggested. "I know it's early but you've got a long day tomorrow. Besides, it's a good way of ignoring pain and hunger."

"What about you?"

"When your back is better we'll take turns on watch. I'll be alright for tonight."

"John." Harold said gently. "Don't take this all on yourself."

"Goodnight Harold." John just said instead, and Harold found he didn't have the strength to argue with him further.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Lionel grinned as the doorbell rang. The hockey was just about to start and it sounded like his pizza was here right on time. He heaved himself out of his old comfy armchair and went to the door but his face fell when he checked through the peephole. On the other side of it was not the expected Luca from Gianni's Pizzeria but Sameen with a frown on her face. At least she seemed to have intercepted the delivery, and she held the pizza box up to the peephole and waved it at him. Lionel sighed and opened the door.

"What are you doing here?" He asked, taking the offered box from her and gesturing for her to enter his apartment. He was thankful that he'd ordered a large after all, diet be damned, because he knew that he was not going to get away with eating the whole thing himself now. And for a small woman, she couldn't half put food away.

"Your phone's off."

"Did Glasses and Wonderboy send you, or did you just feel like interrupting my evening all on your own? Because I told them I was taking a day off."

Sameen took a few steps into the room but didn't follow him to the couch. "They're missing."

"What?" Lionel's blood ran cold. Sure, they lost John on the regular, and he usually turned up a little worse for wear but miraculously whole, but when Harold was out of touch that was never a good sign.

"What happened?"

"They were dealing with a case. Then Reese called me and said someone was after Finch. He was under fire when I lost comms with him. Neither of us could get a hold of Finch. I tracked his phone to his last location on the FDR and found his signature carnage but could find either of them." Lionel had frozen in place as he listened to the information, but despite her concern,   
Sameen opened the pizza box and without asking for permission, snagged a slice and took a massive bite.

"Define carnage." Lionel said. He had an idea, but where the ex-agent was concerned, it could literally be anything.

"An SUV ploughed into the wall in the underpass with three armed dead mercenaries hanging out of it. Reese's motorcycle abandoned on its side, scraped up like he'd wiped out on it. And at the next junction a taxi cab had been in a head-on collision, the driver was taken out with a head shot."

"Do you think they're injured?" Lionel asked, unable to keep the worry out of his voice.

Sameen shrugged. "Judging by the damage to the bike, Reese will be feeling at least a little sore, but that won't have stopped him putting up a fight, and the dead mercs prove it. But there was no blood at either crash that appeared to belong to them."

Lionel frowned, "That's something at least. Any idea who was after them?"

"Not a clue. Not until we can ID the bodies."

"Not related to the case they were working?"

Sameen shook her head, "Nah, that was some domestic thing. That's done with. These guys, they were all dressed like paramilitaries, heavy firepower too."

"I'm going to have to go into work to see the report." He looked down at himself, dressed in faded jeans and his hockey jersey. "Give me five minutes to get changed." He picked up a slice of pizza and stuffed it into his mouth as he left for his bedroom.  
***

John lay in his hammock watching as the sky began to lighten, telling himself to get moving. He'd once had no problem getting up when he had to, he'd never been the sort to need a snooze button on his alarm and if he had somewhere to be he could usually be up, showered and out the door in ten minutes. But lately, dragging himself up from his bed had been getting increasingly difficult, and over the last few months it was only a phone call from Harold with a new number, and a nagging voice in his head, that had him getting out of bed at all. He was tired and ached all over, and he knew it wasn't just a result of one night's missed sleep. He glanced down at the damage to his leg, taking the opportunity to inspect it while Harold still slept. It wasn't too bad, he'd been lucky he hadn't been riding very fast. There was a bit of grit and gravel in some of the deeper gouges, which he brushed out with his fingers. It was sore but hadn't bled much, it wouldn't slow him down significantly, although he knew he'd need to keep an eye on it to prevent infection.

Needing to deal with it before Harold woke was the thing that gave him the push he needed to drag himself out of the hammock to wash the grazes out with the rainwater he'd collected in his little square of parachute material. He splashed some on his face and drank a few handfuls, relishing the cool liquid. The rain had stopped some time during the night and had managed to stay dry, so John had let Harold sleep while he took down the canopy and his own hammock, wrapped them up tightly and stuffed them inside his parachute pack. He then lay his hand on the sleeping man's shoulder and shook him gently.

Harold opened his eyes blearily and blinked at John, looking thoroughly miserable when he realised where he was.

"Sleep well?" John smiled at him.

He opened his mouth as if to complain of a bad night but then appeared to remember that John hadn't slept at all. "Better than expected." he replied instead.

"Good. Because we need to get a move on."

"How do you have any idea which way we are going?" Harold grumbled, climbing awkwardly out of his hammock and stumbling stiffly to the water catcher. By the time Harold had stripped down to his shirt and slacks and washed, John had packed away the last hammock and was slipping the backpack onto his back. He couldn't help but let out a hiss of pain as it settled on his shoulder, causing Harold to look up sharply and twist in that awkward way he did to look at him. It made John feel a little uncomfortable. But if he was expecting Harold to offer to take the pack, he didn't, which made John think that the older man's back was still hurting significantly.

Suddenly the jungle was filled with an eerie whooping noise all around them. It made Harold jump. They sounded surrounded. "What is that?"

"Howler monkeys." John explained. "A lot of them."

Harold looked up into the trees but couldn't see anything. John glanced up as well but they must have been high up in the trees and were hard to spot. He could pick out a camouflaged soldier in a rocky desert or scrub forest, but his jungle warfare experience had been limited and animals who had evolved to blend into their natural habitat was something he was unpractised at. Even knowing what they were, it was a little unnerving to be able to hear them but not see them.

"Are you done?" He asked gruffly, indicating the water. Harold nodded so John took the square down, taking care to ensure the water stayed in it as he tied it like a pouch and got Harold to attach it to one of the straps on the back of his pack. He picked up the assault rifle and slung it across his chest.

"Ready?" John gave him another smile that he didn't particularly feel and off they set.

John lead the way, but made sure he matched his pace to Harold's. He took out the bowie knife and chopped through the thick undergrowth to make a path, ignoring the way the branches caught his arms as he tried to make his way through. The ground was still wet and boggy from the night of rain and his shoes squelched into the mud, at times coming right over his worn shoes and seeping into his socks and soaking into the hems of his pants. He was paying attention to where he was stepping, but it wasn't always clear, and at points there was no alternative route. At one point he stepped into what he thought might be at least partially firm ground and he sank right up to his thigh. Worse than just being muddy and wet, it had been his left leg and now the filth had worked his way into the cuts and it stung sharply. Harold made an attempt to pull him out of the quagmire but was so ineffectual that John just shrugged him off and dragged himself out.

It had been clear almost immediately that this was going to take longer than he'd initially thought. Even though John was beating back the jungle and finding the best place to step and at one point had used his knife to flick a large tarantula out of the way, Harold was still struggling to keep up. He was used to slowing his strides to match his friend's, but this was really slow. Over the course of the day, John felt the irritation rise in him, they needed to pick up the pace, he had no idea how he was going to feed them both, too long out in the heat of the jungle and his wound would fester and there was still the possibility that whoever was after them would still be looking for them.

He was tired and hurting and moments away from snapping and telling him to walk faster when he gave himself a talking to and bit back the comment. The older man was obviously struggling with the difficult terrain, and perhaps he was still suffering from the whiplash caused by the crash and parachute jump, he knew he was being unfair. They'd never talked about the incident that had caused Harold's injuries, but John had been studying his friend for a long time and knew that although he hid the pain well, it was ever present. So instead of losing his temper he glanced behind him and gave the software engineer a gentle pat on the shoulder. "How you holding up?"

Harold looked down at his feet, his leather shoes covered in mud. "I wish I'd made different wardrobe choices."

"Oh come on Harold! Don't you enjoy being the best dressed jungle explorer the Amazon has ever seen? It's very Royal Geographical Society, I thought you'd be into that."  
"You know a lot of those early twentieth century explorers were actually woefully unprepared." Harold said.

"See," John smiled, and this time he meant it, "just like us."

"Most put too much stock in tradition and were unwilling to adapt or learn from others. Actually, when Percy Fawcett first attempted his Amazonian expedition…"

John half listened as Harold started explaining the finer details of an expedition that John had never heard of, that somehow linked to one of the bibliophile's favourite authors, Arthur Conan Doyle. John had never been a big reader, but he liked that Harold could get so animated on the subject. And it actually distracted the older man from his misery. They even seemed to be walking a little faster.

He almost wished he could concentrate on what was being said, but he was too busy trying to work out a plan and watching their route for potential hazards. And then there were signs of something up ahead, peccary he thought, and he was trying to remember how to field dress a pig. He'd only had to do it once before, on a Special Forces survival course, and thankfully it was a skill he'd never had to use. For someone who found taking human life so easy, he had a hard time when it came to animals. He'd do it, like everything, he'd do what he had to in order to survive. But unfortunately, he wasn't going to hunt anything while Harold was nattering away.

He paused and held up a hand, fist closed in a military signal to stop. He knew that Harold wouldn't really know what the signs meant but he followed John's lead, stopped and held his tongue. He raised a quizzical eyebrow, so John tapped his ear to tell him to listen. There was a noise up ahead, a rustling sound in the thick bushes. John raised the rifle, and secured the butt of it into his shoulder, thankful that it had been his left shoulder that had popped, not his right. Unlike a pistol, you couldn't fire a rifle with either hand, not without getting hit in the face with the empty casing. Another quick hand movement, asking for silence from Harold as they moved forward, and they set off again, John managing complete silence and Harold managing the best he could.

They didn't have to go far before John stopped his friend with another closed fist hand signal before pointing to his eyes and then out to the movement in the undergrowth. Harold followed his gaze, but clearly wasn't seeing what they were meant to be looking at. But there was another movement and then suddenly a pair of eyes peered out at them from a dark furry face. John moved his finger to the trigger, took a deep breath, held it and then squeezed.

The shot rang out, sending birds scattering and squawking from the trees. There was a great noise from the bushes and ferns too, a cacophony of squealing and grunting as the herd of peccary stampeded away from them in fear. John and Harold approached the bush that the little wild pig had been seen in, and John crouched and moved the branches aside. The pair of them stared down at the dead peccary sadly for a moment, his shot had hit him between the eyes. John took heart in the fact that at least he had been killed instantly. Pushing the pang of regret aside, he grabbed the small animal's leg and dragged it out of the bushes. At least they wouldn't starve, John sighed, as he got to work with his knife.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Harold stood over John with a grimace on his face as the ex-operative made short work of stripping the skin off the peccary and carving out chunks of meat. It was disgusting, reminded him of the time he'd had to help a number perform open heart surgery, and made him consider turning vegetarian. The fact that his friend seemed so at ease with it, quite upset him, but then he had to remind himself that he was lucky that the other man was so well versed in survival, because who knew where he would have ended up without him?

The issue of their capture had been playing on his mind since they'd first landed in the jungle. John hadn't mentioned it, except to say he didn't know who their captors were. Harold assumed that was because in true John fashion, he'd decided to focus on one problem at a time and had decided their escape from the jungle had to take precedence. But Harold was less than useless in their current setting, so he'd allowed his mind to turn to the bigger problem of who would want to kidnap them and take them thousands of miles away and why.

He had to assume that whatever it was, it had something to do with The Machine, if it had been anyone from John's past he would have been his number that had come up. The obvious candidates would be Vigilance or Decima, they definitely had money, resources and training but the fact that they appeared to be from Latin America baffled him. Why would either organisation want to take them so far away? He itched to do some research into it, and felt at a loss without his trusty computer terminal. This adventure was all a little too 'real world' for him, and he longed to be back in his nice, safe library, with a cup of sencha green tea warming his hands and Bear snoozing at his feet.

John finished the mutilation of his kill and wrapped the pieces of meat in his white shirt. The blood soaked into the cotton, but it was hardly the first shirt of John's that he'd lost to bloodstains. "We'll get a little further before stopping for the day." John explained, securing the package of meat to the pack and adjusting it, trying to ease the tension in his sore muscles. Harold watched as a bead of red pooled at the base of the bundle and then dripped to the dirt.

He realised he'd been staring at the gory sight and not listening. John had carried on speaking to him and he hadn't noticed. Now the younger man was looking at him expectantly. "I'm sorry, what was that?" Harold frowned at his momentary lapse in concentration.

"I was saying that we have another couple of hours of daylight left. I want to make it a little further before we stop for the night. Are you ready to carry on?" John was watching him closely.

Harold wanted more than anything to say no. His legs hurt, both of them, but his injured one in particular. Each step was causing stabbing pain in his knee, hip and at his neck while his spine was held together with pins. His whole body felt stiff, his neck injury was giving him a headache and his feet burned. He was so tired, and they'd been walking for so long and yet there was still so much ahead of them. The landscape hadn't changed, it was just more jungle, for miles and miles, and so it felt like they'd gotten nowhere at all. But John, who was covered in mud, pants and skin underneath shredded and whose heavy bruising at his shoulder had crept even further down his toned arm, was waiting patiently without complaint. So instead, Harold sighed and gestured to the other man. "Lead the way."

They set off again, in silence. Harold noted that even John was going slower this time. He wasn't sure whether it was to cater to him or whether the younger man was struggling too. His face was stoic and unreadable, and although Harold had thought himself getting better at deciphering that stony expression over the years, sometimes he was just too good at hiding what he was thinking. To make matters worse, suddenly the sky clouded over and within minutes it was raining again. They were soon soaked and it made Harold even more miserable. The rain was surprisingly cold, which was a nice change for a few moments but then it just became irritating. His clothing was already stuck to his skin and now it was starting to chafe. He was determined not to be the one to stop first, and just kept staring ahead at John's back as he navigated their way through the rainforest, but he was immensely relieved when the other man stopped and announced that they'd start to build a camp for the night.  
***

John had sent Harold to bed. The older man had been exhausted, but John needed him to take watch later on, so John had put up the genius' hammock first and after spending five minutes watching him stumble round while tying the water catcher up, had forced him into the hammock and told him to rest, he'd be needed later. Harold was out like a light, giving John the breathing space to get the rest of their camp erected without having to hide his own weariness.

It was now almost thirty-two hours since he'd slept, and even then, that had been three short hours of fitful nightmares. He was used to running on empty, there had been plenty of missions in the past where he'd had to push on long after his body was begging for his bed. These days though, he'd become somewhat spoilt, he rarely had to push himself beyond his limits anymore and when he did he could get through it with copious amounts of caffeine and knew he had his luxury loft to go back to at the end of it all. This new job with Harold and The Machine, had managed to get him shot a lot more regularly, but it had also turned him soft. Or maybe it was just that the battering his body had taken over the years was beginning to take its toll. There were days that John ached all over, even when he hadn't come off his motorbike, and he wondered how long he could keep abusing his body. If he was honest, he'd never expected to live this long in the first place.

He could feel himself slipping further into dark thoughts and he had to make a concerted effort to focus on his task. Unfortunately, once the camp was up, that task was incredibly frustrating. He split a soft wood branch down the middle with his knife to make a board, cut a groove in it and then found a hardwood stick to rub up and down in the groove rapidly. The plan was to create some wood dust and then the friction was supposed to start the dust smouldering and from that he hoped to be able to build a fire. The problem was, everything was soaked. The last time he'd done this, on that same survival course, he'd been in the Washington wilds. It had been raining then too, and freezing cold, and it had taken him a long time, but at least they hadn't been as waterlogged as this.

By the time the dust finally started smouldering, darkness had fallen and John's arms ached. He'd decided to sit awkwardly on the floor with the board held between his feet so he could use both arms to rub the stick back and forth furiously. He dropped the board and crouched down to blow gently at his efforts, feeling immense relief as he saw them flare red at his breath. He laid some light twigs on them, careful not to smother his attempts, and blew again until the twigs also started to glow. By time Harold stirred, he had built up his little smoky fire and had skewered the meat on sticks and had positioned them over the flames. They'd have a skewer each today and then ration the rest.

Harold crawled out of his hammock and came to sit down beside John on the thatch of leaves he'd laid out as a damp, crackly picnic blanket. The space wasn't that big, forcing them to sit almost shoulder to shoulder, even seated John seemed to tower over the smaller man. "Did you sleep?" John asked, knowing full well, the other man had.

"A little." Harold conceded. "Do you have an educated guess as to how far we've come today?"

John sighed and turned the skewers. "Not really. Try not to think about it. It will take as long as it takes." He could guess, and it hadn't been nearly as far as he'd wanted. He was worried the answer would be demoralising. In the twelve hours they'd been on the move, he reckoned they'd only managed about fifteen miles, had he been on his own he would have hoped to do at least twenty-five, but he knew he'd been pushing Harold as hard as he could. They still had a long way to go before they got to the river, and if they couldn't find any transport there, they'd be looking at weeks before they made it to the road. John knew he couldn't keep pushing Harold the way he had today, but at the same time, they'd have to find a way of picking up the pace.

"I'm glad you're here with me." Harold admitted. "Heaven only knows where I would be without you."

John didn't reply, just inspected a peccary skewer to ensure it was cooked properly before handing it over. Harold bit into it and then groaned appreciatively at the taste, in a manner most unlike Harold. John smiled as the normally very sophisticated man devoured the meat greedily and they sat and ate in tired, companionable silence.  
***

She held the receiver to her ear, as the phone she was connecting to rang and rang with that weird buzz to the line that told her she was dialling internationally. Eventually it rang through to voicemail. She didn't leave a message. She didn't want to leave a trace of what she wanted to discuss with the other woman. If Root saw the three missed calls in quick succession, she'd know it was an emergency and call back if she could. The problem was, she had no idea what the hacker was doing, or eiven what country she was in. She could be waiting for that call back for a while.

Sameen was sat on Lionel's desk, swinging her legs back and forth childishly when he appeared out of the Captain's office. "What are you doin' here?" He frowned, "I'm just bein' reamed out by my Captain, tryin' to explain what I'm doin' harassin' the CSI's on an investigation that the Feds have taken over, and then I find you sat here like you jus' been suspended from school."  
Sameen grinned wickedly at him, but it was short-lived. She did concede to stop swinging her legs. Lionel cocked his head to indicate they move, and she slid off the desk and followed him into an interview room away from prying ears. "So? What did you find out?"

"Nuthin'," Lionel frowned, "Same damn nuthin' I got when I asked them last time. DNA and finger prints are coming up blanks. These guys are ghosts. I spoke to my buddy at the Bureau and he said the SUV's were rented under fake names from JFK, weapons untraceable. And when they started diggin' further someone shut him down. Whoever set this up has connections. And bank. I'd ask, again, what Wonderboy and Glasses are into, but I know I won't get an answer."

Sameen sympathised with him, she'd been trained to follow orders without question and had done for a long while, until her ex-partner Cole had planted the seed of doubt. These days she needed to know everything, and would be pissed if Reese and Finch kept her in the dark. But she also knew the value of secrecy and at the end of the day, it was their gig so she'd follow along like the good little soldier she was. "You know what? I shouldn't have asked you to look into this. Sorry." She said instead, heading for the door.

"Hey, now wait a minute!" Lionel reached out and grabbed her arm to stop her from leaving, even though to do so normally would risk a broken hand. "Whatever is happenin', it's pretty huge. The Big Guy and The Professor need help. So lemme help."

Sameen paused, weighing up the offer.

"You think I don't know you got some shady government agencies after you for the work you do? I was in that DOD facility when that CIA chick strapped a bomb to Wonderboy's chest. Figured with the way the pair of them laid low after, it was because they were expecting more to come out of the woodwork."

"It could put you at risk." Sameen pointed out. Lionel scoffed. "Okay. I'm going to go and speak to someone. I'll call you if I get a lead."  
***

…KEYWORD ALERT… "Finch" RELEVANCE… CODE NAME FOR ADMIN…

…ACCESSING PHONE LOGS… OUTGOING PHONE NUMBER – WITHHELD, RECEIVING PHONE NUMBER – WITHHELD

…RUNNING ENCRYTION SOFTWARE…. GOVERNMENT LEVEL ENCRYPTION FOUND… ACCESS DENIED…

…PLAYBACK… "Buenas tardes, Señor." [Good evening, Sir.]

"¿Dime, tienes Señor Finch?" [Tell me, do you have Mr Finch?]

"Lo hicimos. Pero el otro hombre tiene habilidades militares. El ha dominado los otros y ellos han escapan." [We did. But the other man has military skills. He overpowered the others and they escaped.]

"¡Mierda! ¿Dònde?" [Shit! Where?]

"Ellos han saltan fuera del avion. Algun lado los Amazonas Venuzuelas." [They jumped from the plane. Somewhere in the Venuzuelan Amazon.]

"¡Consigue un equipo allí!" [Get a team down there!]

"Jefe, estan en el medio de la nada." [Boss, they're in the middle of nowhere.]

"¿Y? Los has subestimado una vez. No lo hagas otro vez." [And? You have overestimated them once. Don't do it again.]


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Harold was so tired and so sore that he had no idea how he was managing to put one foot in front of the other. He hadn't hurt this badly since the accident that had taken his mobility in the first place. He was also too hot, soaked through with sweat, sticking his clothing to him and making it uncomfortable. He was being plagued by an insect that buzzed around his head and he must have touched something poisonous at some point because there was a blotchy, itchy rash on the back of his hand. To rub salt into his wounds, the sunlight that filtered down through the trees was turning his pale skin pink, while frustratingly appearing to just give his colleague a healthy-looking tan. His feet were the worst of his complaints though, and they burned with every step, sending pain up his legs.

Not that he was complaining, as much as he wanted to. As John forged on ahead of him, Harold watched the progress of the taller man's bruises extending from under the sleeve of his tee shirt and felt infinitely inferior. Although John had allowed Harold to take the first watch the night before, the ex-soldier had taken only a few hours to sleep before waking up and taking the task over again. The bag with their meagre supplies in looked heavy, and must have been hurting John's shoulder and yet Harold had been too afraid to offer to carry it in case the other man said yes. He felt certain that should he be weighed down by anything, then he would not have the strength to go anywhere.

And so he trudged onward, scarcely noticing what was happening around him. When he stumbled, it barely registered until John's hands were on him, keeping him steady. He mumbled his apologies. John said nothing but offered him the water which Harold gulped down greedily until it turned his stomach. When he handed it back, John weighed it in his hand and when he drank he barely wet his lips with it. Rationing, Harold realised, and he felt a pang of guilt at having drunk so much. He mumbled his apologies again and John just gave his shoulder a slight squeeze.

They spent the rest of the day walking in this way, again. By late afternoon, John had gone on ahead, cutting back a stretch of particularly dense vegetation, while Harold suffered along at his own pace. Suddenly, John came hurrying back to him, with a renewed energy. "We've found the river Finch." He announced.

Harold wanted to feel relief, but he was just too tired. The achievement had invigorated John, but Harold had no reserves left and couldn't find the emotion he wanted. John shot off ahead again and he didn't catch up until he got to the riverbank. John had dumped his pack and had discarded his shoes and clothes. The ex-operative was wading out into the wide, slow-moving river in just his dark boxers, and then dove smoothly under the dark water. When he popped up, even further out, his hair plastered to his forehead, he turned to look at Harold and his look was one of relief.

"You should come in Harold." John said. "The water is perfect."

Harold stood at the riverbank and frowned. The water looked far from perfect, for a start it was really discoloured, a murky brown that made it look like over-steeped tea at the bank, and almost black where it was deeper. "I think I'll pass thanks." He frowned.

John ran a hand through his hair, sweeping it back, and then swimming back over to the side to talk to the older man.

"Should you really be swimming in that?" Harold asked with a grimace, his thoughts filled with horror stories of parasites getting attached to sensitive areas.

"It's a blackwater river Finch." John leaned his head back and scrubbed the water through his short hair. "The tannins that leech into it are what causes the colour. It makes it low in nutrients and that stops insects and parasites from breeding. Haven't you noticed, you've not been eaten alive by mosquitos?"

Harold was impressed with the other man's knowledge, and wondered again just what he had been doing last time he'd been in the country.

"Come on," John urged. "You'll feel better for it. Don't be shy."

Harold shuffled his weight slightly, he was running out of excuses, and the cool water would feel nice. "It's my feet, if I take my shoes off I'm not sure I'll get them back on again."

"What do you mean?" John swam to the edge and hauled himself out onto the bank. Water glistened on his toned body, littered with scars. Harold noticed his two latest bullet wounds, the skin puckered and pink. They'd taken a long time to heal, longer than they should have due to the wild crusade that John had lead himself on the moment he'd woken up. "Let me see."

"I really…" Harold faltered, but gave up. John indicated he should sit on the pack, and sighing, he did. John knelt in front of him in the mud and started unlacing the other man's shoes, sensing he was too stiff to reach over and do it himself. John eased the ruined shoes off the other man's feet gently. As he began to peel back his filthy socks, it became clear that they were stuck to his feet. John took them off slowly and carefully. Harold felt incredibly embarrassed at the attention, it was further proof of his hopelessness. As the first sock came free, Harold let out a gasp, he'd known they were bad but the visual proof was still a shock. John rested the foot on his thigh while he inspected the damage. The stiff shoes had caused huge blisters, filled up with yellow liquid, ballooning the skin up at his heel and on the ball of his foot. Another blister on the side of his big toe had burst and was leaking pus and blood.

"Harold, you should have said something." John admonished. "Is the other one the same?" he asked as he stripped the other foot carefully and revealed that it was.

"I assumed yours would be the same." Harold admitted. "And you weren't complaining so…" he trailed off.

"I'm used to walking long distances in mine, they're worn in." he pointed out. "You've got to look after yourself, these are looking pretty infected."

Harold gave John a pointed look at the hypocrisy of such a statement coming from the man and he had enough self-awareness to shrink away from it. But he was also right, the edges of the blisters were ringed with red, a sure sign that infection had settled in.

"You can't walk on these. They need draining."

Harold paled at the thought.

"Don't worry." John patted his shoulder. "It will be a relief, trust me. Just sit tight."

Harold watched, fascinated as John built a fire. He'd missed this ritual the night before and even though he knew the science behind it, watching John make fire out of friction and wood was still impressive. While it was getting going, John took his shirt into the river and washed it, beating it and scrubbing it against a rock until most of the pigs blood was out. Once it was as clean as he could get it he tore it into strips of bandage. While he was there, he also rinsed out his own tee shirt and pants and Harold's shirt. He left the shirts to dry on a branch and put his pants back on before kneeling beside the older man again.

Harold tried not to be nervous as John brought Harold's feet into his lap again, cleaned them up with a wet strip of shirt and then pulled the knife from his belt and held it over the fire, watching the blade darken as it heated. In an attempt to take his mind off what was about to happen, he studied the man in front of him. John had been refreshed by his swim, no matter how brief it had been. The man had looked weary long before this latest disastrous escapade, there were lines that had been etched into his face for months, but now his facial expression was neutral as he concentrated on his task. He certainly didn't look like he was about to cut into his friend's foot.

He looked up at Harold and gave him a comforting smile. "Don't look so nervous. It won't hurt," he promised. "You know when I was in basic training we did a three-day march. I had these new boots and they blistered my feet up like this. At the end of the first day I thought I was done, they hurt so bad, but my Sarge lanced all the puss out of them and they were fine after." As he told the little anecdote, he pierced the largest blister with his knife gently. The skin was already dead, and so to Harold's surprise he didn't feel any pain, just a mixture of relief and disgust as the viscous yellow liquid spilled out, running down the knife and over John's fingers.

"Oh dear." Harold murmured, grimacing at the sight.

"Better?" John asked, as he gently pressed on the bubble, releasing all the nasty fluid, ignoring the mess it was making of his hands.

"Yes." Harold admitted. "Although it can hardly be a pleasant experience for you."

"Come on Harold, you've patched me up plenty by now. I'm just returning the favour."

Harold returned his gaze to his friend's battered chest, with its numerous evidence of Finch's ministrations on the man. "Mr Reese, how many times have you been shot in my employ?" He knew the answer, but for some reason couldn't stop himself from asking.

"Harold," the word was a warning, he cringed under the older man's scrutiny.

"I'm sorry, it's just that…"

"Come on, Finch. This isn't anything new to you. You've seen all of this before." He started on the next blister.

That was true. Harold remembered the first time he'd helped John change his bandages. It had been right after the Snow incident, and he'd walked in on John trying to reach the exit wound on his lower back. He'd been horrified by the amount of scarring then, particularly a couple of nasty whip scars that stretched across his back. John had been embarrassed then, and was clearly embarrassed again now. "I know, it's just that when I look at you now, all I can see are bullet wounds. Wounds that are my fault."

John abandoned what he was doing to grab his tee shirt and pull it back on, but the thin fabric was soaked through and just clung to his body, hiding nothing. "You've never shot me Finch." John pointed out. "In fact, half of them are from my own partners at the CIA."

"Who first shot you because you were sent to get a laptop and weren't supposed to come back." Harold countered sadly. "I was getting you shot even before we met. No wonder you wanted to leave. I'm sorry for bringing you back."

"Harold," John's tone had changed. "Can we not talk about this while I'm holding a knife to your foot?"

"Yes, of course. I'm sorry." They fell into silence as John finished off his ministrations, wiped them with a wet cloth and then wrapped Harold's feet in the strips of cotton that he'd turned into bandages. They really did feel better, and he was touched by the care the other man had shown him, even though he'd been unable to look Harold in the eye since they'd started that awkward conversation.

"Thank you." Harold said warmly.

"I'm going for a swim." John replied, his voice gruff with emotion, and he got up and went back to the water, diving in fully clothed this time. Harold watched him go with a pang of guilt. How was it he'd managed to cause his strong yet fragile friend even more pain?  
***

John couldn't look at Harold, not while his eyes were stinging. And so he did what he usually did when things got too much, he ran away. Or in this case, swam away. He took a deep breath and dove in, closing his eyes and allowing himself to just feel the water as it engulfed his head and the rest of his sore body. Kicking his legs gently, he propelled himself as far as he could under the water, until he had to come up for air, at which point he switched into long powerful strokes, only partially hampered by the damage round his shoulder. He imagined the water stripping his pain and anger away, leaving it in his wake. It was a visualisation exercise he'd used for years, before he'd even consciously been aware that that was what it was. Some days it worked better than others, but if nothing else, at least it allowed him to shed a tear without anyone noticing.

He'd swum a lot in the CIA, mostly just to get away from Kara and her incessant needling at him. She'd derided him for it, as she did with most other things, told him he thought too much while he poured all his strength into doing relentless laps of whichever hotel pool he could find. But actually, the opposite was the case, he emptied his mind, concentrating on his stroke, counting the lengths so he knew just how far he'd gone, attempting to beat his own record each time. The water loosened too tight muscles and soothed his aches, it helped him see things more clearly when he was without distractions, and gave him the space to find the strength to do what needed to be done.

Eventually the energy left his wounded arm and he came up to breathe, treading water with gentle but effective kicks. He'd swum a lot further than he'd realised and couldn't see where he'd left Harold anymore. The jungle was quiet, the only sounds were a far-off cawing from an unidentifiable bird. He glanced around at his surroundings, he'd been too preoccupied so far to take it all in. The river was wide but the trees towered over him on either side, some growing straight up out of the water. At the bank he spotted the watchful eyes of a caiman, hidden between the tree roots, but it was a small one so he remained unconcerned. But as he was watching the reptile, something touched his bare foot and he pulled back instinctively, unable to see in the murky water. He had a moment of panic until he realised there were trees beneath him too, completely submerged and yet still managing to survive until the dry season when the water levels would drop and they would be revealed. A rustling up above him and a shake of the branches revealed a troop of capuchin monkeys, almost thirty of them at a quick estimate. They leapt through the trees elegantly, some with tiny babies clinging to their bodies. They were on their way somewhere, at a brisk pace, coming from the direction that John had just swum from. He wondered it Harold had seen them.

With his thoughts turning to Harold, he knew he had to get back to the older man. It had been unfair of him to leave the injured hacker all alone in the jungle and he'd been gone for longer than he'd meant to. He knew the conversation that had caused him to flee had been borne of good intentions and it was irresponsible to bail on him. He started a steady swim back, exchanging his previous furious freestyle for breast stroke that was gentler on his arm.

During the course of his return swim, the clouds started to come over, and just like it had on previous days, the rains appeared. The rain was heavy, and pelted down on the slow-moving river and John's head. He felt guilty for having left his friend exposed to the elements and picked up the pace to hurry back.  
***

Harold was hobbling round the small piece of land, trying desperately to put the tarpaulin up before the rain put the fire out. He'd managed three of the corners but was struggling with the fourth when a pair of large hands reached out and look it from him. Harold jumped and turned around at the sudden intrusion, even though he knew who they belonged to. John was stood, soaking wet beside him, damp hair plastered to his forehead.

"I'm sorry I left you Harold." He said as he tied the tarp up around a tree, higher than Harold himself was able to reach. "That was unfair of me."

"I'm sorry too." Harold replied sadly.

"Just so you know," John began firmly, "I'm back because this is where I'm supposed to be, where she'd want me to be."

And Harold knew he wasn't just talking about back from his swim. He almost asked when the ex-operative had taken to using Root's pronoun for The Machine, but then realised that wasn't the 'she' he was talking about. "And I will be eternally grateful." He said instead.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Sameen was sick of staring at the computer screen, searching through camera footage around the crash site and not achieving anything. She had some basic computer skills and Finch had taught her to hack the link to the New York camera systems, but that was about the limits of her ability. The agency had hired her for her proficiency with weapons and her personality disorder, not for her ability to code. So instead she changed into a pair of sweats, stuffed a ball in her pocket and took Bear out for a run. It was getting dark, but that didn't concern her. Anyone who saw her as a potential victim while she had the big Belgian Malinois with her was a fool, and if anyone tried anything, she'd be sure to prove just how foolish they were.

As with everything, she pushed herself hard. After a short stint of interval bursts to get her and Bear warmed up, she picked up the pace until she was at a near sprint and raced passed the other pedestrians on a long winding loop down to Madison Square Park. She and Bear did a couple of laps of the park and then she threw the ball for him until even he was wearing out. She decided on a light jog back to the subway and then home to her draughty warehouse conversion in Williamsburg. It was nice having Bear with her, she'd never really been bothered about where she slept, and her loft was far too large considering all she owned was a bag, a suitcase full of black clothes, mostly bought in bulk, and a stash of guns. But having Bear with her made the empty space a little more hospitable.

She was headed for the subway station when the music coming from her phone was interrupted by ringing. She pulled it out of the sleeve she had strapped to her arm and pulled her headphones off before she answered it.

"Root?"

"Hey sweetie? Is something wrong?" The woman's familiar flirting was overlaid with concern. "You almost never phone me. And definitely not three times in succession."

"Erm, yeah. Look, are you busy right now? Reese and Finch are missing."

"Missing how?"

"The Machine gave Reese Finch's number and then they were being followed. I lost comms with them and all they left behind was a crash scene and a few dead mercenaries. Fusco has been trying to get details on the FBI investigation but someone is shutting them down."

"Aww sweetie, I'd love to help Harry and his attack dog, but I'm kind of in the middle of something."

"Well, can you just ask your machine to point me in the right direction? She doesn't seem to pay much attention to me."

"I will. I've got to go. Stay safe sweetie."

"Yeah, you too." Sameen said as she hung up the phone. "Ugh Bear," she turned to the dog and scratched behind his ears, "Your humans sure know how to get into trouble don't they?"

Just then a payphone rang, startling both her and Bear. She crossed the street to go and pick it up, and when she lifted the receiver to her ear a crackling voice came over the line, reading out a series of letters and numbers. It wasn't the usual code for a social security number, but she recognised it easily as a flight number. She tapped the number into her phone to remember it and then thanked the Machine and hung up.

Turning away from the subway to Brooklyn and heading back in the direction of The Library, she made one last phone call. "Hey Lionel, any chance you can get me a flight manifest?"  
***

"Harold!" John shook the older man's shoulder and called his name again. "Harold!"

Eventually the man opened his eyes blearily, and frowned when John put a hand on his forehead.

"You're feeling a bit clammy." John said, feeling the moisture on Finch's forehead.

"We're in a tropical rainforest and I haven't showered in days." Harold grumbled. "How am I supposed to feel?"

"Take this." John thrust the water at him. It had been filled up again overnight, so at least they had plenty. "Stay where you are and let me check your feet."

Harold stayed in his hammock helplessly as John started unravelling the bandages. He sipped the water from the pouch of parachute material, but it was awkward and he ended up spilling some down himself. He huffed, frustrated. John shot him a sympathetic look. Harold's feet looked better than they had the previous day, but they still were red and inflamed. As he wrapped them back up again carefully followed up with socks he studied his friend's face. He really didn't want to have to ask him to walk on them, he knew they would be painful, but without proper medical attention they were only going to get worse, they had to keep moving.

"Are you…?"

"I'm fine. I'll manage." Harold forced out.

John nodded, thankful that he wasn't going to have to push the man. He held out his hand and Harold took it and allowed him to haul him up. Harold stood gingerly on his feet. John knelt down in front of him and helped him put his shoes on, loosening up the laces so that his bandaged feet would fit, tying them on again as though he was dealing with a young child. Harold resigned himself to the assistance, hands resting on John's shoulders for balance. John knew the older man was embarrassed but the fact he didn't protest the help told John a lot more about his condition than he would ever reveal willingly. He wanted to tell him that he shouldn't feel so self-conscious, after all in the last few years, necessity had dictated they become closer than most people who'd known each other for decades. More than once, Harold had had to dress John's wounds or change his sheets when he was laid up in bed recovering from his latest bullet. In return, John had held his plastic bucket for him while Harold had thrown up in the throes of his ecstasy hangover, or made him a tea and forced him to bed when too many long nights working with The Machine had left him aching and sleep deprived. But to say something now, when John himself had griped about the support, every single time, would make him a hypocrite so he said nothing.

John pointed Harold in the right direction and allowed him to lead the way, setting the pace. John followed on beside him, catching the older man when he stumbled, which was frustratingly often. The ex-soldier was reminded of his first tour. He and his squad had been cut off by heavy fighting in a village outside Sarajevo. Road blocks and the dense forest made extraction difficult and they'd found themselves with a long walk. They'd taken heavy fire, their sergeant was injured as were two others of their eight man squad. As they fought through the dense vegetation, and dodged the patrols by paramilitaries, John had resorted to picking his sergeant up and carrying him over his shoulder for over thirty miles. The action had won him a medal and his first promotion, and he'd risen up the ranks quickly after that, but dreams of that night had haunted him for a while, shuffling forward under the larger man's weight, feeling his blood soaking into his fatigues from the man's severed leg. The story hadn't had a happy ending, John had saved his sergeant's life, but the man hadn't coped well with his disability and the trials of adjusting back to civilian life. John had lost touch with the man, but had heard a few years later that his divorce had been the last straw and he'd taken his own life. John had always wondered, if he had stayed in touch, been someone to talk to, could he have stopped him from eating a bullet?

John was so wrapped up in his thoughts that when Harold stumbled again, he didn't react until it was too late. It would have been funny if it wasn't so tragic, one minute Harold was right beside him, the next he had disappeared into a large fern. "Finch!" John exclaimed and pulled the plants back to reveal the computer engineer laying face first in the dirt. Harold groaned and rolled himself over so that he was flat on his back looking up at John, his glasses sitting crookedly on his nose. Seeing he wasn't too badly hurt, John allowed himself a smile. "You know, if you wanted a rest, all you had to do was ask."

Harold propped himself up on his elbows and adjusted his glasses with a finger. "It was not the most elegant of moves." He conceded irritably.

John helped him up but the older man staggered again, unable to stay upright. "Okay, sit back down." John ordered, pulling the pack off his back and slinging it at the base of a large tree. He eased his friend down and Harold sank into the bag. He leaned back against the tree and closed his eyes. John handed him the water and helped him drink.

"You need to tell me how you're feeling, and be honest with me. I'll know if you're lying anyway."

Harold frowned at John but his expression softened when he looked at the look of worry in the younger man. "I'm dizzy." He admitted. "I have a pounding headache. I'm too hot, but shivery as well. And my joints ache and my feet are…" he stopped himself and sighed trying to collect himself.

John could see that the other man had been pushed beyond his limits. He put a hand on the other man's shoulder and gave it a comforting squeeze. "I'm sorry."

"Not your fault." Harold mumbled.

"No, it is. Your wellbeing is my responsibility."

"You can't take all this upon yourself John."

"You might be my employer, but when we're in the field the decisions are mine. Just try and get some rest. I'll find a way."

Harold did as he was told, closing his eyes and resting his head back against the tree trunk. John put a hand on his hip and with his other he pinched the bridge of his nose. He took a deep breath and then looked around to try and find another way.  
***

Harold closed his eyes and took deep breaths to try to settle the dizziness. He felt horrible, he knew his feet were badly infected, knew he should have mentioned them sooner. Now, no matter how well John took care of them, it was too late. He'd hoped, rather naively, that he could just channel some of his colleague's stoicism and power though it. But that hadn't happened and he felt pathetic. Four days in the jungle and he'd failed already. And it worried him that John was so worried. True, he hadn't said as much and his face was its usual inscrutable self but there had been a twitch when he'd been checking his feet that morning, and the frantic way he was now chopping down trees with that knife that was completely inadequate for the job.

"What are you building?" Harold asked wearily, after watching John hacking away at the forest.

The taller man stopped and his shoulders sank. "I…" He paused as he thought about his answer. "I haven't quite decided yet." He looked down at the destruction he had created at his feet. He didn't turn around to look at Harold. "A raft ideally, but I'll settle for some sort of stretcher."

"You'll need a lot of trees to float us both." Harold pointed out.

"I was thinking of just floating you." He turned around, running his hand through his hair. He looked exhausted.

"Mr Reese, you need to take a break."

John shook his head and swung his knife again with a viciousness that betrayed his outward calm.

Knowing his argument wasn't going to make the other man stop, Harold gave in to the pull of sleep.

When Harold woke again, he was disturbed to note that John's creation had come a long way, making worry about how long he'd been asleep. But he was too tired to ask, and he didn't fight the pull of his eyelids as he fell back to sleep. The next time he woke it was with a panic, because he opened his eyes to see the sky passing rapidly above him. He looked to his side and realised he was laying on a narrow raft held together with parachute chord. John was in the water beside him, holding onto the raft and swimming alongside it, pulling it along with him. He had a grim determination on his face and was concentrating on his stroke, staring ahead. He hadn't even noticed that Harold had woken. Harold watched him a moment, taking in the gentle bobbing of the raft as they cut through the water, worrying about the fact he didn't remember being moved onto the cobbled together vessel. Worrying about a whole host of other things too; the strength of the raft, caiman and piranhas, the obvious fact that John was running himself to exhaustion. He always hated being so out of control, but accepting his complete inability to even lift himself up, he tried to relax, trusting in John to keep them both safe.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

"You're fucking crazy, you know that, right?" Lionel growled, still out of breath from chasing after the small assassin. Sameen hadn't listened to him, again. One minute they were stood, weapons drawn, outside of a cut-price hotel near the airport, the next she has burst into the building, found the right room number and kicked in the door and had pistol whipped the man they had been looking for. Lionel had raced up the stairs, taking them two at a time to catch up. He flashed his badge at the frightened young couple who had stuck their head out of their door down the hall to investigate, and ignored the man who was in the elevator, frantically bashing the button to get it to go anywhere but that floor.

By the time he entered the room, Sameen was stood pointing her glock at their man, who was athletic, dark haired and tanned, and also sprawled on the floor clutching his split eyebrow. Dressed all in black, a blank expression on her face, she made for a formidable image. Once again, Lionel reminded himself not to get on the wrong side of her.

"What did you do to them?" Sameen raged, cocking back the hammer on her gun so that it made that ominous click that told her adversary they were mere seconds away from being shot.

"Jesus Christ!" Lionel grumbled, shutting the door so that the rest of the corridor couldn't see what was happening.

"Who are you? I don't know what you're talking about." The man said in a frightened thick Hispanic accent.

"I'm not buying your bullshit. Five days ago you and another man entered the country on a flight from Bolivia, hours later my friends disappear in a hail of bullets. Now tell me what happened!" Sameen demanded. "My buddy here is going to tie you up, and you're going to think about your answer. Better do it before I find some toys to play with. You shout, I shoot you. You cause trouble, I shoot you. ¿Entiende?" [Understand?]

Lionel frowned at being called 'Buddy', it was the nickname he used for his son Lee, and he didn't want it tainted by whatever was about to go on here. He knew that he should stop whatever was about to happen right now. He was all for bending the rules, and his work with Reese and Finch had proven to him not all rule-breaking was a bad thing, but he had thought he'd draw the line at torture. So he surprised (and disgusted) himself when Sameen threw a collection of zip ties out of her pocket onto the bed and he holstered his weapon and picked them up. He dragged the heavy wooden chair out from under the desk and sat it in the middle of the room. He then grabbed the slim man and hauled him up into the chair, with not an inconsiderable effort. The man looked horrified, but he was neither fighting Lionel, nor making it any easier on him. The detective actually thought the man might be ready to piss his pants and wondered if Shaw had got it all wrong.

Sameen held the gun trained on the man until Lionel had zip-tied his wrists and ankles to the chair, and then at that point she tucked her gun into her holster and made a quick search of the room. The man had only one small case with him, stored in the wardrobe. She dragged it out onto the bed and unzipped it. It was still packed, containing a couple of pairs of clothes suitable for the cool New York spring, she pulled out a long sleeve shirt and then produced a knife from her boot and used it to rip the arm off. "Gag him." She ordered, flinging the piece of material at Lionel.

Lionel caught it and moved towards the man who started begging, tears filling his eyes. "No! Please stop, I don't know who you are, I don't know who she is talking about. You're a good man I can see that, if you let me go I won't tell anyone." The detective hesitated, feeling sick with himself for even allowing this to have gone as far as it did, but then Sameen slid her knife into the lining of the suitcase lid and tore a hole. A quick violent shake and three passports fell out in varying colours.

Suddenly, the tears in the man's eyes were gone, replaced by a look of cold wrath. "You are not government." He says coldly, aiming his comment at Sameen, "If you were, your partner here wouldn't be so fucking squeamish. So who are you?"

"Hey?" Lionel replied gruffly, "Who you calling squeamish pal?" And the passports and the switch in demeanour was enough to convince him to stuff the sleeve in his mouth and tie it tightly behind his head. The scared expression was gone and now he was glaring daggers at them in a way that reminded him of Reese.

Sameen flicked through the passports, a blue US one, a red Peruvian one and a burgundy Chilean one, then discarded them on the bed and continued her search. When she'd confirmed there was nothing more to be found she filled up the small electric kettle that sat on the desk and switched it on. The sound of water beginning to boil filled the room. Lionel guessed it wasn't to make tea.

She sat on the edge of the desk and crossed an ankle over her knee nonchalantly. "Where's your friend Eduardo?" She asked, tugging the gag down for him to answer.

"What friend?" he snarled.

Sameen sighed like she was bored, but Lionel knew her well enough by now to know that she was enjoying herself. "This kettle is full, in a minute it will be boiling, and then I will be pouring it over your crotch. How much I pour is up to you."

"You wouldn't."

"She would." Lionel muttered, more to himself than anyone else, but it had the desired effect.

"Let me explain something. My list of people I care about is very short, and one of them is a dog. The other two have disappeared, and quite frankly I'll do anything to get them back."

Lionel was reminded of a time when John had had a similar conversation with a group of Aryans. Neither ex-operative was good at showing they cared, in fact they both put an obscene amount of energy in pretending not to, but Lionel had learned that they'd both throw down their lives for their friends. Perhaps it was his vulnerability, but Finch in particular had managed to inspire their unwavering loyalty and Lionel would not want to get in the way of either of them when they were protecting the small fussy billionaire.

Sameen continued her monologue, "If you think that I won't do whatever it takes to get the information I need you have severely underestimated how much I care about them, and how much I don't give a crap about you." As she said it, the kettle came to the boil, she swept it into her hand and then stuffed the gag back into his mouth before casually pouring the entire contents of the kettle onto his groin.

Eduardo struggled and squirmed, trying to get out of the way of the boiling water, his screams muffled by the gag. His attempts to get out from under the steady stream of water caused him to knock his chair over and he crashed to the ground with a dull thud. Sameen looked at him with distain and then went back into the bathroom to refill the kettle. Lionel heaved the man in his chair upright and stood back as Sameen re-entered and started the kettle again. The room was silent apart from the ominous sound of the water heating up again.

"Why were you in New York?"

"Business meeting," he growled.

Sameen rolled her eyes. "You should have gotten out of my town at the first opportunity."

"My flight got cancelled." Eduardo admitted.

Sameen smiled as though she knew something about that. But it looked like she wasn't going to share with the rest of the class.

When it came to the boil again, Sameen picked it up and held it at a precarious angle over the man. A few drops spilled over the edge and he flinched away. Sameen set her kettle back down on the base plate and pulled the gag down. "Where's your friend?"

"He's not my friend, he sold me out! ¡Hijo de puta!" [Son of a bitch!] he spat.

"So what happened?" Sameen asked.

When he didn't reply she raised an eyebrow. "Seriously Eddie?" She flicked the switch on the kettle again. It had barely had time to cool but she wanted to make sure it was as hot as possible.

"Okay, yeah." He caved. "I was supposed to take the little geek out. He got in a taxi and we were tailing him when all of a sudden, a couple of SUV's and some guy on a motorbike show up and start shooting at each other. And then the bastard that I'm supposed to be working with pulls a gun on me and puts it to my head, tells me that I'm the one that needs eliminating. By the time I dealt with him, I followed the last SUV to a small airfield but there were too many of them and it was too late to intervene. I got the details of the flight and my comrades were going to intercept it when it landed, but it never arrived."

"Woah, woah." Lionel said. "I'm missing something here. Why were you going to take Glasses out?"

"I am part of an organisation that believes that technology with be the downfall of our society. Our governments are gaining too much power and your friend Harold is one of those to blame. A computer is being created to spy on our every move and he is going to be a part of it."

Lionel and Sameen exchanged looks. "Pal? You're right about being too late, I think you were years too late." Lionel said.

"Then why have they taken him now?" Eduardo said.

"Who's they?" Sameen growled.

"The government."

"Which one?"

"Take your pick, they all want to control us. David and I never used our real names, I don't know where he is from, he could have been working for any of them."

Lionel frowned. He felt like he was lagging behind in this conversation, but he was less concerned about government conspiracies and more concerned with where his friends might be. "What do you mean, the plane never arrived?"

"As in, it was scheduled to arrive in Paraguay but hours into the flight it disappeared off the radar."

"I'm going to ignore the irony of you using tracking technology to check on this flight." Sameen smiled coldly.

Eduardo glared at her, "We are in a war!" he growled. "One where there are no rules."

"So where did this flight go down?"

"We're not sure. Somewhere in the Caribbean Sea. But no one has found the plane."

"So, what are you saying?" Lionel said. "They're gone?"

The man smiled, despite the situation he was in and shrugged. "One way or another, we got rid of him and his friend on the motorcycle."

Sameen looked ready to pour the rest of the boiling water over him anyway.

"You don't understand!" Eduardo turned to a cold rage, "Your friend will destroy our last freedoms. He needed to be stopped."

"You don't have any idea what you are talking about." Sameen said, barely controlling her anger. She was only stopped from further violence by Lionel's steadying hand on her shoulder. It seemed to ground her and she put the kettle down. "Wipe everything down for prints," she said turning to Lionel.

Lionel frowned at her but produced a handkerchief from his pocket and did as he was told. He hated this, it felt like his days of doing his dirty work for HR and he was filled with dread at what Sameen would do next. He'd met a couple of people he'd thought were sociopaths in his time in the NYPD, enough to know that Sameen was the real deal in that department, but he'd always thought she'd still had a conscience, even it was based on reason and duty rather than empathy. Watching the way she'd tortured this man though was enough to make him question that. He knew that Finch wouldn't approve, he wasn't even sure Reese would, although it was hard to tell at times just how far the man would go. He wanted to find them both, really he did, but he was worried about how far he'd get dragged into this crazy world they all lived in. For once, he was glad that they kept him on the periphery.

"You done?" she asked, when he'd made sure to wipe down everything. He worried that he'd missed something, but the diminutive ex-spy had been watching him closely and he assumed she would have noticed if anything had gone amiss. She reached into Eduardo's back pocket and fished out his phone. "Last thing, what's the code to your phone?"

Eduardo frowned, "What do you want with my phone? I told you, I'm the last one here and your friends are dead anyway."

"Do you really want to give me an excuse to get creative on you?" she said.

"Five-three-six-one." he said reluctantly.

"See, that wasn't so hard now was it?" She entered the code and then brought up the camera and snapped a picture of him before typing out a quick message and hitting send. She then used one of the packed shirts to wipe it down and left it on the bed. "¡Hasta luego Eduardo!" [Until later Eduardo!] She signalled to Lionel, "Let's go."

Lionel made sure they were back in the hallway with the door shut before he hissed. "We're just going to leave him there?"

"That man is an international terrorist. I sent a message to an old agency friend who would love to know his whereabouts. Don't worry, Eduardo won't be alone for long."

They took the rear stairwell at a pace that was hurried but wouldn't arouse too many suspicions and then left by the fire escape and out into the service yard. Their car was parked a few blocks away but first Sameen paused and looked directly at the security camera that was above the door.

"Thanks for your help on this one." She said addressing the camera, her voice tinged with defeat. "Can you do me one last favour and do something about the security footage?"

Lionel was about to accuse her of losing her mind, but then a little red light blinked on the camera as though in acknowledgement and he started to wonder if losing your mind was catching.

"Thank you." Sameen said, even though she'd never said thank you to Lionel or any other human near as he could tell. The red light blinked again.

"You done?" Lionel nagged. "We need to get out of here and you're starting to sound a little loopy."

"Yeah, I'm done." Sameen nodded.

They hurried back to the car and Sameen didn't even argue when Lionel got into the driver's seat. When they got in she slammed her hand on the dashboard in frustration. "Shit!"

Lionel studied the woman beside him. He'd never seen her get so upset before.

"Hey," Lionel said, gently. "We'll find them, we'll get them back. You really think Wonderboy is gonna be stopped by something so mundane as a plane going down?"

Sameen rolled her eyes. "I think you've been watching too many movies Fusco. Plane crashes tend to be pretty final."

"All I know is that man has nine lives, and if Finch is with him then he'll come up with a way of getting them both out of it. Come on," he turned on the ignition and then slapped her arm lightly with the back of his hand, "let's go get something to eat and think about our next move, alright?"


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Harold woke up to the sound of rain on a palm tree thatched roof and the smell of wood smoke. He opened his eyes to find himself dressed only in his boxers and covered by a thin sheet, on a narrow mattress on a homemade wooden bed. He was in a small panelled shack with a thatched roof. There was a small table beside the bed with a plastic cup of water and a packet of pills on it. His glasses were there too, neatly folded, so he picked them up and put them on before reading the packet, Amoxicillin, antibiotics. Strong ones, if the size of them were anything to go by. He sat up and looked at his feet. They'd been neatly bandaged, with real bandages this time, and although they still hurt, it was a minor annoyance compared to how they had been. In fact, his whole body felt better, even though the mattress was about two inches of squashed foam on a thin board.

He hauled himself up and looked around. There was a woven mat on the floor with another well-used mattress on top, the bed had been made, with pillow and sheet neatened with military precision, clearly a habit that the occupier of the bed had been unable to shake. The thought of it made Harold smile. The parachute pack was sat in the corner of the room. And Harold found his clothes had been washed and hung up to dry on a piece of string that crossed between the timbers of the roof. Someone had left a pair of plastic blue flipflops beside his bed, and so he resolved to use them to find out where he was.

He got to his feet, still shakily, pulled on his pants and white short sleeved undershirt and awkwardly slid his bound feet into the flipflops, frowning a little at them in disgust. He was normally of the opinion that whomever had come up with them should have been locked up for crimes against fashion, but he had to admit that right now it was nice not to have to encase his feet back into those horrid shoes. Thus dressed, he opened the creaky wooden door and ventured outside, or rather, surveyed the scene from the dryness of the doorway.

The rain was so heavy that it obscured his vision, but Harold could see that he was in a small village of similar thatched huts, although his was one of the smallest of them. The hut had been built on stilts to prevent any water seeping in, which was definitely a relief as heavy puddles were forming and turning the rest of the ground muddy. Beyond the small collection of huts were a few scrubby fields with some unidentifiable crop growing in them and then beyond that, the river with a small wooden jetty jutting out into it. A few scrawny looking chickens were wandering around the yard but they seemed to be the only inhabitants that had braved the rain.

There was, however, movement in the biggest hut, one that had a large thatched roof but had only had walls up to chest height, allowing for the air to pass through. It was there that the smoke was coming from and he could see a woman moving around at the back, so he steeled himself against the inevitable awkward conversation and went to investigate.

The structure didn't have a door on, so he avoided the biggest puddles and limped over to the building, getting soaked in the process. He still knocked on the wall to announce his presence as he got there, and stood just out of the rain while he waited to be acknowledged. The domestic scene he was rewarded with made him smile. There were three women in the hut, dressed in faded tee shirts or vests and long skirts. One was stoking a clay firepit, next to a long table with bench seats and the other two were sat on bits of tree stump around a low wooden trough, and sat with them was John Reese. John and the other two sitting women each had a piece of fine metal grill and were using it to grate cassava into the trough. At first glance, John looked more relaxed than Harold had seen him in a long time, he had his tee shirt on but had borrowed a pair of tan cargo shorts and some flipflops that were slightly too small and there was a small, scruffy black and white dog curled up asleep on one of his feet. The women were chatting away in some unidentifiable language, but every so often, the one tending the fire would say something in Spanish and John would reply with a smile on his now-bearded face, but as he glanced down at what he was doing, Harold caught the briefest flash of well-hidden sadness, something that the software engineer had learned to look for in the years that the two had been friends.

It was John who first noticed Harold's presence, the women too deep into their conversation to have heard his timid knock. "Finch!" He greeted. "How do you feel?"

Suddenly, all eyes were on him, human eyes at least, and he felt incredibly awkward. The oldest of the women, slim and grey haired, got up from the trough and walked over to him with a big grin. She wiped her hands on her skirt and then took his hand, "Viene, viene." [Come, come.] Harold allowed himself to be lead over to an unoccupied stump, a bit bemused by the whole situation.

"Take a seat, Harold." John suggested, indicating the stump. "You're looking better."

"Erm, thank you." Harold pushed his glasses further up his nose and did as he was told, taking a seat beside the woman who had lead him over. "What are you doing?"

"Making cassava bread." John replied, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. "I'm getting quite good at it. Let me introduce you, this is Maria, Maria and Inez." He pointed out each woman.

"Buenas dias." [Good day.] Harold greeted, giving them an awkward little wave.

"¡Buenas tardes!" [Good evening!] Inez who had called him over and one of the Marias who was working the fire answered in unison. The other Maria, didn't appear to speak Spanish and just smiled at him nervously.

"Buenas tardes? How long have I been asleep for?" Harold asked.

"Two days." John replied.

"What?" Harold was shocked.

"We came across this village a couple of nights ago. You were really out of it, but your fever seems to have broken this morning."

Harold wracked his brain, and then he was hit with a slew of memories. John hauling him up onto the jetty and carrying him bridal-style through the village. A woman, Inez he thought, trying to help him drink something. Tossing and turning, sweat-soaked and delirious while John sat on the floor beside him and wiped him down with a cool wet cloth over his face. The thought of it was mortifying, he was glad he didn't remember anything else, because he knew there had to be worse.

"We've been staying at Inez's son's place while you recover. When we're feeling better her husband has offered to take us to town on his boat."

"Oh, muchas gracias. That's very kind." [Thank you very much.] Harold said. "I'm sorry we don't have anything to offer in return."

Inez said something to John and he explained something in fluent Spanish. While Harold spoke pretty good Italian and passable French from his travels round Europe after MIT, his Spanish was rudimentary at best and he was too tired to think in any language but his own. He was thankful that languages was another skill that the former international spy possessed. Whatever he said made Inez smile. She said something back and reached over patting John's hand and said in heavily accented English, "Good boy."

Harold laughed at the pronouncement and John looked a little sheepish. "I've been doing work around the village to pay for our keep." he explained. "Her son and a lot of the younger generations have moved to the towns so they needed someone to repair the roof and help out in the field."

"Well, tell them I'm very grateful nonetheless."

Harold watched fascinated as the women and John finished grating the tough root vegetable, squeezed all the moisture out by twisting it inside a large swath of cloth, and then spread it out on the grill over the fire until it turned into a thin pancake of bread. As it got dark, a few men and younger women drifted in from the fields and a small group of children were dropped off by boat on the jetty from school. They all washed up and then the whole village came and sat down to dinner on the bench seats.

Dinner consisted of the cassava bread that they'd spent all afternoon making, potatoes and fried piranha. After days of near starvation, the food tasted as good as any high-end New York restaurant. John and Harold were content to sit at the end of the table just listening as their hosts talked animatedly in their native tribal language. Inez translated what she could into Spanish, which John then translated into English for Harold, but the whole process was rather exhausting so they soon gave up. Half way through dinner, Inez's husband, Miguel, came home from a day's trading in the nearest town. He sat down opposite the two Americans and chatted away to John as he ate.

When dinner was finished, John tried to help with the washing up but was made to relax. Miguel got a couple of cold beers out of a basket in the river and produced his guitar. They spent the evening drinking their beers and listening to Miguel sing and play. Harold really didn't like beer but sipped at his anyway and marvelled at his friend. He'd rarely seen this side of John, who seemed oddly comfortable in this village life. and even sang along quietly to the more famous songs in Miguel's repertoire. He wished he could stay up to take full advantage of the idyllic evening but he was still exhausted and it wasn't long before he had to retire for the evening. He left John finishing the beers and went to the hut for the night.  
***

Harold was so tired that he didn't even hear John enter, but he was awoken in the early hours by a sharp intake of breath from the floor. Harold sat up and stared down in the dark at his employee. It was almost pitch black in the confines of the hut, but as his eyes adjusted to the dark he could just about see John, laying curled on his side facing the wall. A bit of moonlight filtered in through the gaps where the walls met the thatch, and it highlighted a line of well-toned back and narrow hips.

"John? Are you okay?" Harold whispered.

"What?" His voice was quiet and a little hoarse, "Erm, yeah. Just a bad dream."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Harold asked, knowing the answer.

"No." The ex-operative's voice wavered as he tried to get whatever emotions the nightmare had dredged up under control. He kept resolutely facing the wall, not able to look at his friend, even in the dark. "I'm fine," he sighed, "I just… I'm a little tired."

Harold decided that if they weren't going to talk about the things that were haunting the other man, then they would talk about one of the aggravating factors instead. "You've been pushing yourself too hard. You're not indestructible, and no one but you is expecting you to be. I can't thank you enough for what you've done out here, but you need to take care of yourself as well."

"I screwed up Finch," he said, so low it was a strain to hear it. "Our number's boyfriend, McKay is dead."

Harold frowned, "I'm sure you had no choice, I know you…"

"It wasn't me." John's voice sounded hollow, perhaps even further upset at the conclusion that Harold had jumped to. "I spoke to him, tried to get him to see he wasn't alone, that he had something to fight for. But I was distracted when The Machine told me you were in trouble, I sent Shaw to take my place but it was too late. He'd killed himself."

Harold lay in the dark wondering how to respond. Putting aside the fact it sounded like The Machine had done more than just give John his number, there was so much more to the ex-operative's terse words. Of course, Harold had known that his friend would identify with the man, an ex-soldier, driven to drink by the horrors of what he'd experienced, but him being suicidal was something that neither had factored in, and undoubtedly had brought it much closer to home.

John gave a sigh, and it was deep and shuddering, "It seems no matter what I do, I get people killed."

The smaller man had been about to say something and then stopped. So the veteran hadn't been thinking of his own brush with ending it, after all. Instead he'd been worried about the lives he couldn't save. Harold knew that everyone they failed weighed heavy on the other man's heart, as they did his, but the recent loss of a certain detective had been a blow to the already damaged man, and Harold didn't know if the resulting cracks could ever be fixed. Harold had suspected that John had blamed himself for that tragedy, but he hadn't known he would also take the blame for everything he felt he couldn't control.

"Well, call me selfish, but I'm glad you came for me. I most certainly would be dead if you hadn't."

"And yet I pushed you too hard and could've killed you anyway. If we hadn't come across this village…"

"There's only so much you can do. You can't fix everything, no matter how hard you try."

John stayed silent. Harold imagined that he wasn't telling the other man anything he didn't rationally know. But Harold was well aware that knowing something rationally and being able to feel that it was true, was not always as easy as it sounded.

"When I first started this," he started slowly, still unsure how much he wanted to reveal even after all this time, "I was helpless. I was already responsible for my best friend's death, and then I was stuck in a wheelchair, watching as The Machine showed me people in trouble and I was unable to do anything to save them. I blamed myself for not being good enough, for not finding a way to fix things. But then I found you, and suddenly there was this other person who could do the things I couldn't do, who cared as much as I do, and who will put themselves on the time for complete strangers in a way I never could. I don't think you've ever realised just how important you are to me, to the people we help, or to the world. Now when we lose people, I still feel sad. But I don't beat myself up about it, because I know that we have done everything in our power to prevent it."

Harold watched the bare back of the other man in the oppressive silence that followed. The tension in the shoulders, the way it heaved up and down with his breathing as he tried to control his emotions. His skin was a moonscape of shallow craters and lumps of knotted flesh, marring the toned lines of muscle, ugly reminders of all the hurt that had been done to him. Harold wondered, not for the first time, how much hurt one man could endure.

When the response came, it was so quiet that he almost missed it. "Thank you Harold," and they both lay in the dark with their thoughts until first John, then Harold were dragged back into a restless sleep.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

After another restless night, John was up at dawn and helping Miguel load the boat with cassava to sell in town. By the time that Harold was up and dressed, everything was packed and Inez was pressing a flask of coffee and a stack of bread into John's hands for the trip ahead. The whole hamlet had woken up to see them off and after an exchange of handshakes and hugs, they clambered into the little boat, which was barely more than a canoe with a motor, and they set off.

Harold sat stiffly in the little boat, but to John it was a relief to get moving again. He enjoyed the feeling of the wind in his hair and the water spray as the boat cut a path through the river. It reminded him of a simpler time, before the CIA had stolen his life and made him who he was. He sat at the front, barefoot, and listened to the sounds of the jungle. Miguel was still being the perfect host and clearly proud of his home, every so often he would slow down and point out something in the trees, so that their journey was marked by sightings of monkeys and sloths and once a pair of rare blue macaws. Seeing the macaws enlivened Harold, and he proceeded to take more of an interest in their surroundings. Once Miguel realised Harold's interest in birds, he got even more animated and pointed out everything, until he checked his watch and saw they were going to be late for market.

It was a long journey, would have been long even without the guided safari, but John was disappointed when they rounded a bend and saw their first glimpse of the modern world, a huge bridge that crossed over the wide river, empty save for one lone truck that was rumbling over it. There was a small jetty just after the bridge on the Eastern side, and it was here that Miguel moored his little boat. They were met by a couple of pre-teen boys offering to help unload the sacks of produce, and Miguel let them for a couple of coins each. John slung their backpack over one shoulder and the three men followed the boys up the dirt road into town.

Town, by any other standard, was a misnomer, but after the sleepy little village they had spent the last few days it felt like a bustling metropolis. There was only a couple of streets of houses, but the place appeared to be a meeting point for the local tribespeople, and a bustling market had been created in the street, with people selling all manner of things laid out on sarongs on the dusty floor. John watched Harold with a wry smile as he took it all in with awe, this whole week had been so far removed from anything he'd previously experienced. Everything appeared to be on sale, from food to clothing, to motor boat parts.

Miguel lead them both to a small concrete building, which seemed to be the village shop. Inside it sold mostly snacks and toiletries, but had a fridge selling cold drinks. Outside, there were a couple of plastic chairs and tables printed with advertising for various sodas, and there was a tiny TV perched in the window angled at the table. Despite how early it was, the tv was already showing a soccer match and a small ground had formed round it sharing a couple of bottles of beer between them. Miguel gestured for them to sit and then went inside to speak to the owner, he came out a moment later with the man from behind the counter who brought them a pair of glasses and a cold bottle of soda.

"Espereis aqui, y mi amigo organizerá el transporte. ¿A Caracas, no?" [Wait here and my friend will organise transport. To Caracas, no?]

"Caracas, si. Miguel, mi amigo, usted ha hecho mucho para nosotros." [Caracas, yes. Miguel, my friend, you have done a lot for us.] John pulled off the bag and rummaged in it until he found his motorcycle jacket. There was a hole in the lining and after a bit of fiddling he pulled out some money. Disguising the total with a bit of sleight of hand, he placed fifty dollars into Miguel's palm as he shook his hand. "Esto es solo un pequeño apreciación de nuestro gratitude." [This is just a small appreciation of our gratitude.]

Miguel looked down at the money, "¡No! No es necessario." [No! That's not necessary.] He replied, but neither John nor Harold would let him return the money. In the end they exchanged hugs and thank yous and Miguel left to go to work.

"Where did the money come from? Our kidnappers took my wallet." Harold pointed out.

"Finch, you of all people should know to keep some cash hidden for emergencies."

"What now?" Harold asked, looking round. The soccer fans all cheered as someone scored a goal and the tv commentator became hysterical with enthusiasm.

John poured them a glass of soda each and held out a chair for Harold to sit. "Now, you're going to sit here and guard the bag, while I go and see if I can get my money changed and do a little shopping." His scanned his surroundings and noticed that at the end of the little building a small payphone was attached. "But first things first, I'm going to call home."  
***

Bear bounded up to the detective who was sat on a park bench eating a falafel wrap. It was unclear at first whether the dog was looking for food or affection, but Lionel wasn't prepared to share. He did reach down and give the Malinios a good scratch behind his ear which sent his tail wagging enthusiastically.

"So what now, My Dark Avenger?" Lionel greeted as Sameen sat beside him.

She looked at her clothing; black jeans, black boots, black tee shirt under her black winter coat. "You think I'd look better in pink?" She said sarcastically.

"I can think of a few worse nicknames if you'd rather?" Lionel pointed out.

Sameen shrugged. "Dark Avenger works for me. Hey, did you bring enough to share?"

"What? You can't afford your own food now Finch isn't around?" Lionel grumbled, but he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out another falafel wrap anyway.

Sameen grabbed it without saying thanks, ripped off the foil and bit into it in a rather unladylike manner. She pulled a bit off and threw it to Bear who caught it without letting it touch the ground.

"So what's new?"

Sameen rolled her eyes. "Nothing. I've been checking out our friend Eduardo. He's got links to this anti-tech terror group, New Dawn, that operates over much of Latin America but can't find anything on this David guy. He was on the flight manifest too, but whoever he works for seems to have scrubbed his name from every system I've got access to."

"Huh. We really could do with Glasses right now."

Sameen raised an eyebrow, she didn't need to say No shit Sherlock! it was clearly written on her face.

Lionel sighed, "Yeah, I know. Look, we'll get them back alright."

Sameen took another bite of her lunch while she prepared her next retort, but she was interrupted when her phone rang. She swallowed her food quickly and drew it out of her pocket, hoping it was Root with some new leads. Instead it was an unknown number with an international dialling code that she didn't recognise.

She answered and there was an automated voice on the other end of the line. "Would you be willing to accept a collect call from 'Reese'?" A familiar low voice cut in at the end.

"Yes," she said. She didn't do enthused or relieved, but she was sure that if she did, she would have been both.

She put the phone on speaker and held it between them as the automated voice said "Connecting now."

"Hey Reese," she greeted as the lines connected. "Too cheap to pay for your own phone calls huh?"

"I don't exactly have an abundance of change right now Shaw," he said with a hint of amusement.

"Hey Wonderboy, it's good to hear from you." Lionel said, and Bear barked his enthusiasm at hearing his master's voice.

"Hey Lionel, hey Bear."

"You got Mr Vocabulary with you?"

"He's making sure we don't miss our ride. I've stood him out on the roadside with his thumb out," he joked.

"You're hitchhiking? I'd say don't get in a car with a psycho, but I think it's them that'll have to worry."

"Where are you?" Sameen asked, trying to get the conversation back on track.

"Venezuela. Making our way to Caracas. Shaw, I need a favour. Pick us up some passports and money and bring them down here so we can get home?"

"What about the entry visa?"

"I have a guy. But I could do with the cash."

"Okay, but you're buying me a pitcher of Mojito when I get there."

"Why didn't you call us?" the detective chipped in. "You had Little Miss Sunshine here worried?"

"Not many phones in the jungle Lionel." John shot back. "Shaw, when you get here, there's a hotel off Avenida Luis Roche, Villa Mercedes. I'll see you there, booked under John Doyle."

"Yep, no worries. I'll look for the first flight. Reese, you need to watch your six. The people who are after you, I don't know who they are yet but they have ties at government level. It looks like your plane went down. But if they suspect you're alive you could be in trouble."

"I'll bare that in mind." John said seriously. "Gotta go. See you soon Shaw. Lionel, look after Bear for us will you?"

They said their goodbyes and Shaw hung up the phone. "That's gonna cost me a fortune. Finch had better pay my phone bill this month."

"Why am I not surprised that John just happens to have 'a guy' in Venezuela that can get him a visa? How many 'guys' do you think he has? How many do you have?" They got up and started walking together out of the park.

"One or two." Shaw admitted, keeping her answer cryptic. In truth she didn't, she didn't have the personality for making friends, but there were a few people she knew who she could bully into finding a counterfeiter.

"Now, Glasses is the guy I think of as having 'guys', but Reese… he's a little too antisocial."

Sameen frowned at him, "Lionel, you're rambling."

He laughed, "Yeah, you're right. What was I thinking? You're all about the most anti-social people I've ever met. So, what do I pack for Caracas?"

"You're looking after Bear, remember?" The animal in question padded along beside them in full protective mode, with a prancing step, almost touching Sameen's thigh. His head was up and tongue lolling out, happy to have heard John's voice.

"I'll leave him with Leon. He'll be okay there until we get back."

"Fusco, we don't know who is after them, this could be really dangerous."

"That's exactly why I'm going. Look, I may not be like you and the Crabby Commando, but I can watch your back, and I know how to shoot. I'm going with ya. Besides, I have a new passport, I really should get a stamp in it."  
***

"This isn't working." John said, hours later.

After he'd found he could change some of his dollars into Venezuelan Bolivars on the black market, he bought snack and bottles of water. He had gone on the hunt for new footwear and had found a pair of knock-off running shoes for Finch, big enough to fit around his bandages, but had failed to find anything large enough to fit himself so he'd stayed in his flipflops. He'd come back to Finch and they'd sat finishing their bottle of soda and waiting for the shop owner to help them with a ride as Miguel had promised. It soon became clear that the villager had put them in the right place. Most of the trucks that rattled through, on their long journey to and from Ciudad Bolivar to their destinations throughout the Amazon basin, stopped off at the small shop to stock up on cold drinks and cigarettes. The problem was getting someone to take them along. It turned out that there had been a resurgence in bandit robberies on the road to Caracas, and no one wanted to run the risk of being targeted for having a couple of gringos in their truck.

"So what are we going to do now?" Harold asked. The man may have been feeling better, but he was still clearly exhausted and uncomfortable, and the continual hardships were causing him to feel defeated.

"Follow me." John said, shouldering the pack and starting to walk out of town.

They started walking along the dusty highway, Harold traipsing dejectedly after the other man. It was over 100 degrees F and their shirts were sticking to them in the humidity. John knew that he wouldn't be able to make his friend walk far, even in the new blue and white striped footwear. Thankfully, his plan only needed them to get far enough out of town to not cause a scene.

They reached the bridge and walked over it, both looking down at the enormous river below. The size of everything in this place could truly be staggering at times, and John was determined to drink it all in and not take the experience for granted. He wished that Harold could do the same, after all, how many people could say they'd been to the Amazon, but he suspected that he was too wrapped up in their hardships and at the logistics of getting home to really see it.

Once they were over the bridge John paused. "Now we wait here." He said. They both sat down on the hot concrete at the edge of the road.

"How is this better Mr Reese?" Harold grumbled, looking up at the bright sun that filtered through the trees.

"You'll see." John replied with a slight smile. He didn't want to give his plan away, knowing it would be met with disapproval.

It wasn't long before a flatbed truck came over the bridge, already with four people sat in the back. John jumped up and stuck his thumb out, but when the driver didn't appear to be slowing down, he stepped out into the middle of the road and pulled the stolen handgun from the back of his waistband and fired off a shot, narrowly missing the vehicle's wingmirror. The truck screeched to a halt in a panic.

John stepped over to the driver, keeping the gun trained on him at all times and had a few words. Before long he'd negotiated a seat for Harold up front and was settling himself down in the back with the others. They set off again, and after an initial fear from the other passengers, everyone seemed to relax, and a bottle of rum started being passed around, including to the two mismatched gringos. Finally it felt like they were on their way home.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Sameen frowned at her travelling partner, arms crossed over her chest in amused frustration. She was watching Lionel in his socks getting increasingly irate. But not as irate as the queue of people he was holding up. He pulled his belt off and stuffed it in the plastic tray and then tried the x-ray machine again. He still beeped. The disgruntled employee whipped out his wand and processed to frisk him thoroughly. When he was done, he stormed away and grabbed his belongings, shoving his feet back into his shoes violently.

"What was it?" Sameen asked as he was rushing to get everything back, phone and change back into pockets, a large pair of headphones back around his neck. He slid his belt back on and then hauled his large suitcase off the conveyer belt. He'd packed too much, Sameen knew she should have supervised him but had hoped he'd be sensible about it. She had a small backpack with her, containing a small wash kit and a single change of clothes, he had a freaking neck pillow attached to his case.

"My wallet." When she raised an eyebrow, he protested. "What? How was I supposed to know the RFID blocker would set the machine off?"

"My God Lionel! Anyone would think you'd never been through a scanner before!"

He shrugged, "I usually just flash my badge and they let me through." He paused. "I don't like to fly," he admitted eventually.

She wanted to tease him more, but she'd already ragged him about the case a little too much and could tell he was feeling a little inadequate when compared to the small ex-operative. "You didn't have to come," she pointed out. "Hopefully this will be a simple extraction, we could all be on the first flight back tomorrow."

"Yeah?" Lionel raised an eyebrow. "Are you kidding me? When was the last time anything was simple? Nah, I'm not letting you go off and play rescuer without me."

Sameen offered a smile. "Come on then, we've still got time to stock up on snacks for flight."

Lionel looked at her and laughed. "At airport prices? What do you think my case is full of?"  
***

"Finch, we're here." John shook the older man awake. The computer engineer woke up stiffly and look a couple to seconds to take in his surroundings. He was slumped against the door in the cab of the truck. John was walking to him through the window. It was dark, but they'd finally arrived in the city. Tall buildings rose up on either side, lit by street lamps. A few trees lined the wide streets but they did little to soften the concrete jungle they'd arrived in. It should have been a relief to be back in a city after the difficulties of the jungle, but after the week they'd had, instead it was jarring. Harold had felt the jungle to be a hostile environment, but there was something more here, if he had to put a label on it, he'd say there was an atmosphere of violence. The street was almost empty, there was nothing to suggest why he felt that way, but it was definitely there. Was this how it felt to be in a warzone?

Harold thanked the driver and slid out of the vehicle to stand with John. John paid the man some money and he drove off without a word more, leaving them on the dusty street. A taxi drove passed but didn't stop, a group of young males walked down the street, talking loudly, perhaps a little drunk. Harold found himself unconsciously stepping a little closer to his friend, for once glad that he could just see the shape of the handgun beneath his tee shirt.

"The hotel is a few streets over. Let's dump our bags and then get something to eat. If I remember right, there's a good Argentinian BBQ place nearby."

"When, exactly, was the last time you were here?" Harold asked.

"If I told you, I'd have to kill you." John smiled, but Harold suspected he was only half-joking.

Harold studied his surroundings as John lead them to the faded hotel. A lot of the buildings looked like they'd been built in that sixties style of ugly concrete and hadn't been renovated since. Everything appeared to be crumbling, a lot of the businesses appeared to have closed. Metal shutters had been graffitied with anti-government slogans and pollution had stained the pale concrete.

"Sorry it's not the Hilton." John apologised as the neon sign of the Villa Mercedes came into view. The name was obviously grander than the building itself. It certainly wasn't a villa, it was barely what Harold would deem a hotel. The lobby was wooden panelled and had a desk and an old green sofa in it. The walls were adorned with crucifixes and pictures of saints. While John spoke with the woman on the reception desk, Harold looked up at the largest of these and made eye contact with the particularly graphic depiction of Jesus, staring down at him sadly from his cross. He'd always been a man of science, not religion, so why did he feel like the figure was disappointed in him?

Soon they were being shown up to their room on the second floor. They were given a room at the end of the corridor, closest to the stairwell. He found himself noting the alternate stairwell, the elevator, how many other rooms there were, the fact there were no cameras. He noticed that John was doing exactly the same, although probably more subtly than he was.

They were lead into the room, simple whitewashed walls, a set of twin beds with a small bedside table between them, another crucifix on the wall. There was a small bathroom attached with cracked tiles in the shower, an old style boxy television on an old desk and a window with an air-conditioning unit hanging out of it. John went up to the window and looked out. Whatever he wanted, he seemed to be satisfied with and took the key from the receptionist. She left them to it, but not before she gave Harold a pointed look and then twitched her head in the direction of the crucifix, as if to tell him to watch out what they got up to while Jesus was watching.

"Do you ever get fed up with people assuming you're my boy toy?" he asked, sitting down on the bed.

"Well, you do buy me nice clothes…" he smirked, "and got me an apartment."

"If this place is indicative of what you consider acceptable accommodations, perhaps I shouldn't have bothered," he said, bouncing ever so slightly on the bed and listening to the springs creak.

"I know this is not quite what you're accustomed to, but it's clean, it's cheap and we're here off the books." He fished a small bag of toiletries out of the backpack and threw it onto Harold's bed. "Get freshened up Honey, and I'll take you out to dinner," he teased with a wink.  
***

Half an hour in and Sameen was ready to tear her hair out and then throttle Lionel with it. He'd spent the take-off fidgeting with nervousness, bouncing his leg up and down until Sameen had grabbed his knee and stilled it. Then he'd cracked open the first of the snacks right away, and together they'd munched through a whole bag of M&M's until the sleeping pills that the detective had taken kicked in. It wasn't long before Sameen was trapped by the window, while Lionel snored loudly and his head rolled towards hovering barely an inch above her shoulder. And what was worse was this was only the beginning. Despite The Machine's help with finding the best route, there was nothing direct, so they were flying to Dallas, then Panama and eventually Caracas. Sameen wasn't good at sitting still at the best of times, and now she couldn't even access the rest of the snacks!  
***

John's eyes shot open and he took a second to remember where he was, he'd woken up in so many strange hotels over the years that they blended together. At first he thought he'd jolted awake as a result of another bad dream, in it, he'd been stood on the street with Carter and Simmons had just shown up. It was a familiar start, although over the last few months his brain had managed to concoct a hundred different alternative endings to this same scenario, but they all ended with Joss dying in his arms. For a second he was just relieved that he'd woken before he had to go through all of that again, but then he heard a noise and realised the real reason for waking up.

He leapt out of bed, silently and pulled the handgun out from where he'd put it under his pillow. He dashed to the window in his boxers and got there just in time to peer round the curtain and see the last of a group of black clad, heavily armed paramilitaries storm the hotel.

"Finch!" John hissed, pulling his shorts and tee shirt on, cursing the fact he still hadn't found a decent pair of shoes. By the time they'd finished their jungle trek one of the soles had come flapping off. He slid the flipflops on instead, tucked the handgun and knife into his belt and secured the rifle strap over his head and shoulder.

Finch woke with a start and panicked when he saw John dressed and ready for war. The ex-assassin picked up Finch's clothes and threw them at the man as he went back to the window. "Dress. Now," he urged, spurring him to action. He checked back and saw the street was clear, so he pulled up the sash window and then grasped the air conditioning unit and ripped it out of the window. The unit was old and heavy, and although John did his best to keep control of it, it still landed on the tile with a thud. He turned to have another verbal jab at Harold and was thankful that he was now fully awake, dressed and ready to go.

He pulled the sheet off the bed and swung it around a little so it twisted before handing the end to Harold. The computer genius had a look of fear on his face and a question, what on Earth am I to do with this?

"Hold onto this tightly, I'm going to use it to lower you down to the street."

Harold balked at the suggestion. John had to manoeuvre him towards the window and was about to help the stiff man through. Harold swung one leg over the ledge and was about to shuffle out when John noticed a red laser dot on his shoulder.

"Finch!" John shouted and grabbed his friend and wrenched him out of the window. The pair of them fell down to the floor, John had his arms wrapped around Harold and so his already bruised shoulder took the brunt of the fall. At the same time, a bullet shot through the window and embedded itself into the wall above Harold's bed. The landing on the floor had been hard, and had brought tears of pain to his eyes, but he shook it off and got into a crouch. While the other man, struggled to right himself, John peered over the sill and scanned for the shooter. Another bullet shot passed his head, close enough for him to feel the air move around it, causing him to duck again. He abandoned the idea of taking out the sniper. It would take him time to find him and take his shot while taking fire, and with the rest of the paramilitaries on the way, he wouldn't have time. He hauled Harold to his feet and together they ran for the door.

He listened at the door before opening it a fraction and peered out. He could hear them, the floor below, heavy boots across tile. They weren't doing a great job of being quiet and one of them seemed to be arguing with the receptionist. He couldn't tell how many of them there were, but he could hear them splitting up to take both stairwells at the same time. He shoved Harold forward toward the stairs, "Roof, run." He urged, taking the stairs two at a time and dragging the bewildered older man along with him.

Painfully aware that he had limited ammunition, John knew they had to retreat rather than take the men on. But they were closing in on them and Harold was stumbling desperately up the stairs. John had him by the arm and appeared to be the only thing keeping him on his feet. Almost as a sixth sense, he felt that at least one of them had caught them, and he twisted round and squeezed off a shot burst of gunfire. The man cried out as he went down, slumping into the stairwell. John weighed up going back down to snatch up his weapon, but Harold needed him, more were coming, there was no time.

He nearly left the downed man to continue their run, but then his eye caught something else. He let go of Harold and jogged down to the body, and snatched up the grenade he had attached to his body armour. John could hear more footsteps coming upon them so he pulled the pin and flung it round the corner. He grabbed the dead man's AK47 and thrust it into Harold's hands.

"What am I…?"

"Just carry it." John barked the order. He normally appreciated the other man's dislike of weapons but he didn't have time to argue. Reluctantly, Harold slung the strap across his chest and they moved on.

They burst out of the metal service door at the top of the stairwell and made it out onto the roof just as the blast from the grenade rocked the building, causing a boom loud enough to cause John's ears to ring. The building was six stories high, sandwiched between two much taller buildings. One of the buildings appeared to be residential and had large concrete balconies on every floor. John and Harold raced to the corner of the hotel that butted up to it and John peered round the edge, judging how far it was to the nearest balcony. They had to get approximately a metre over, he judged that if they could stretch out enough, they might be able to grab hold of the top of the balcony. From there, they would have to haul themselves up and over. He was reasonably sure that he could do it, but Harold was another matter.

There was no time to think about it. He stood precariously on the edge and grasped the corner of the building while he leaned out, taking care to keep his body tucked into the wall, letting his weight hang on his arm, his bad arm and stretched over. He could hear Harold muttering to himself, "Oh God, Oh God!" John's leading foot made contact with the balcony and he forced it flat, so that he was wedged between the two. He wrapped his fingers over the edge of the balcony and was about to manoeuvre his weight carefully over to the balcony, when he felt a sharp pain in his side. His foot that was wedged against the balcony slipped in those stupid flip flops and suddenly he was sliding down. He gripped the balcony harder and went he came to a stop a second later he was dangling by one arm six stories above the street, his flip flop hitting the sidewalk below with a slap.

"John!" Harold called out as another bullet was fired and the hacker dropped to the floor to avoid being shot at.

"Cover fire!" he ordered, not knowing whether he'd be heeded. But Harold did as he was told and aimed a shot. He pulled the trigger to hard and sprayed bullets almost at random, whatever aim he'd taken knocked off course by the vicious kick-back, but it would do.

Teeth gritted, John got both hands on the balcony and started to haul himself up. They were at the back end of the building now, the opposite side to their room, but he should have taken into account the possibility of a second sniper. A bullet embedded itself in the wall just above his head and rained dust and fragments of concrete down on him. With a huge effort he dragged himself over the wall and fell down onto the balcony floor. He leapt up immediately and swung the assault rifle into action. Using the balcony wall as cover, he now had the higher ground and so found the man quickly. He was laying on the roof of the building across the street. A single headshot eliminated him.

"Come on Finch! We need to get out of here." He planted his feet and secured himself against the balcony so he could lean out as far as possible towards his friend who was still on the roof of the original building, trying not to panic. Harold reached out across the void and they clasped each other's arm. "I've got you." He promised. And then in a feat of pure trust, Harold stepped out and grabbed at the balcony with his free arm, feet scrabbling for purchase as John reached down, found a fistful of belt and pulled him to safety.

There were shouts as their pursuers had finally made it out onto the roof. They were far from out of the woods yet. John tugged at the glass sliding door to the apartment that the balcony belonged to. Finding it locked, he drew back the assault rifle and slammed the butt of it into the glass causing it to shatter. "Let's get out of here!"


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

In the list of terrifying things Harold had been made to do since meeting the mysterious Mr Reese, leaping onto that balcony ranked right up there with disarming a bomb vest with seconds to go. But he didn't have time to process it, as John smashed the glass door and marched right into the apartment. There was a scream from inside one of the other rooms, and then a door to a bedroom opened and revealed a wizened old lady brandishing a metal baseball bat.

"¡Lo siento!" [I'm sorry!] John muttered, hands up in a gesture of passivity as he lead the way to the door. The woman yelled something at him, which Harold didn't catch but got the feeling that it had something to do with the bloody footprints that John was leaving on her carpet. John himself had barely seemed to notice that he'd cut his bare foot on the glass from the window, or the splash of red on his white tee shirt at his hip.

Dutifully, Harold limped after the ex-operative as they went out into the hallway and headed to the stairwell. There was no one following them so they clearly had decided against making the jump but that didn't mean they'd given up. "They'll be at the exits, how are we going to get out of here?"

"This building has exits front and back and an underground parking structure." John said. "They'll have to split up to cover all their bases."

"When did you check out this building?" Harold asked. He remembered noticing it when they entered, but he hadn't noticed a parking lot, and when they'd gone to look for John's BBQ restaurant, which had disappointingly closed down, they'd walked in the other direction.

"2004." John said, as they entered the creaking elevator and pressed the button for the basement. He clearly wasn't going to elaborate further.

"Wait? Was jumping onto the balcony your planned escape route?"

John shrugged. "It was a contingency."

Harold blustered. He had further questions about that decision, but there was no time. The elevator groaned to a halt and the door opened. John raised his rifle and scanned the parking lot. It was half full, mostly older cars. Unsurprising since none of the apartments looked particularly luxurious. But he hardly had time to take it all in as a group of armed men dressed in black ran down the ramp and started shooting. John grabbed the back of Harold's tee shirt and yanked him back into the elevator.

"Get to the moped in the east corner. I'll cover you." John barked. It wasn't often that Harold was in a position to be ordered around, and usually he bristled when his employee, (although they had long since become so much more than that) treated him like he was one of his grunts on a battlefield. But now it was a comfort, knowing the other man was in such level-headed control of the terrifying situation. John planted his barefoot to stop the elevator door from closing and then started shooting. Harold took the AK47 that he was carrying and propped it against the wall for John to snatch up when needed and then prepared to move.

"Wait…" John said in a low voice, almost like he was talking to Bear. "Wait… wait… go!"

And as soon as he was told, Harold ran. He darted out of the relative safety of the elevator and out towards the black moped that John had indicated, limping as fast as he could. He'd never been a fast runner, but now each jarring step was painful and painfully slow. He could hear the exchange of gunfire in the background, but thankfully they'd focussed their attentions on eliminating John instead of him. He did hear one bullet whiz passed him, but it was followed almost immediately by a cry of pain and Harold knew without turning around to check that John had taken out the man responsible.

Harold reached the moped and grabbed the handles. Harold remembered an early conversation when John had lectured him on evading gunfire. At the time, Harold had been irritated by it. He was an engineer, he could damn well work out for himself what would be a suitable cover and what a bullet would tear right through, and he'd taken the opportunity to highlight the irony of having the discussion while John was wheelchair bound after the CIA had put two bullets in him. Now though, it was John's voice that came back to him, explaining the difference between 'cover from view' and 'cover from fire' and reminding him that only the engine block of a car would be tough enough to be considered the second one. Thankfully, the moped was an older model, without a lock on it, so he pulled it off the stand and wheeled it forward, so that when he ducked down to hotwire it, he was hidden behind the engine of an old Ford Transit.  
The moped was heavier and more unwieldy than he expected, and he struggled to get it back on it's stand once he'd moved it, making him think again about his frivolous declaration about wanting a motorbike. But luckily, after a childhood on working on cars with his father, the next bit would be easy. He pulled off the plastic cover, wrenched out the ignition and exposed the wires. Within seconds, the engine turned over and he had a working escape vehicle. He wanted a helmet but there wasn't one, so with considerable trepidation he got on it and spun it around, driving it faster than he would have liked and then coming to a stop in front of the elevator.

He almost got off, to exchange places with John, but John just rushed out and swung a leg over, securing himself as the pillion rider and urging, "Go!" With John holding onto the seat with one hand and firing the AK with the other, Harold peeled away and they aimed directly at the exit ramp. Harold's heart leapt into his mouth as John put a hand on his shoulder to steady himself and then stood up on the pegs to fire over the top of Harold's head. Harold had to ignore the gunfire that made his ears ring, only semi aware of a few of their attackers being felled, other diving for cover behind parked cars, it was taking all his concentration to keep the bike upright, especially with 200 pounds of lanky spy balanced precariously on the back.  
They emerged from the parking structure and out onto the street. Harold steered right, thankful that it was late at night and the street was clear. He took the corner a little too harshly, felt John behind him lurch in an attempt to keep his balance and for one horrifying moment he was about to be responsible for the second motorcycle crash of John's week. By some miracle, they both recovered and as they drove south on the wide road, John settled back into a seating position.

"Take a turning." John said, keeping his gaze fixed behind him as he adjusted the AK47 onto his back and drew his handgun instead. Harold was relieved at that, the kickback from the machine gun was strong and had been one more thing threatening to unbalance the little moped. "Here will do." He pointed and Harold directed them down a side street, but not before they caught a glimpse of an armoured SUV pulling out of the parking lot and racing after them.

Mentally, the older man berated himself for not being faster, but if his colleague was upset by it he didn't show it. "We can't outrun them, so we're going to lose them another way." He said calmly. "We need to keep out of their sight, stick to side streets, keep changing the route. But I want you to head West."

"What's West?" Harold changed street again. He was heading West now, so he looked up and saw that the city sprawled out up the mountainside. The further up the mountainside, he looked, the windier the streets appeared and the smaller the buildings between them. If was difficult to be sure in the dark, but Harold was starting to form a picture of just where John was intending to hide out and he was dreading it.

But his concerns were soon put into perspective as an old jeep came barrelling towards them. Harold twisted the accelerator and swerved out of the way at the last minute. Gunfire peppered the tarmac just missing them. Harold concentrated on finding another turning to get away, while John took pot shots at the vehicle. At the last minute he saw a narrow alley and he took it.  
He realised too late that it was a set of stairs. He let out a brief yelp and gripped the handlebars until his knuckles were white. With every step down it jarred his arms and sent shocks into his damaged spine. It was almost impossible to keep it in a straight line and he veered off to the right until he clipped the wingmirror, shearing it off at the weld. He recovered it, and saved them from shattering both bike and knees into the wall. Harold didn't even breathe until he shot out of the bottom of the stairs and straight across traffic. He let out another noise of panic and resisted the urge to close his eyes. Behind him, John squeezed his shoulder gently but firmly, and it was enough to ground him and give him the ability to slow the bike down and guide it into the rest of the traffic.

The squeeze from his passenger turned into a pat, "Well done Finch." John said appreciatively. His voice was even and unfazed, Harold felt a nervous wreck. He wanted to pull over, perhaps to stop and throw up, definitely to allow John to take over the driving, but he knew that just because they'd cut a corner didn't mean they could stop. Their pursuers had the home advantage, they knew the city, and it wouldn't be long before John would need to use his weapons again, so he took a deep breath and accelerated again.

They were nearly there now. The streets were getting narrower and more potholed, the houses smaller. Harold was just starting to feel a sense of relief, when behind him, John started shooting again.

"Up the hill." John ordered. Harold just did as he was told, trying hard to ignore that a bullet pinged off the engine, gouging up the aluminium casing and imbedding itself against the insides causing the engine to start a rattling sound. He rode faster and the noise increased. The little moped was struggling. He didn't even need to see the vehicle that was bearing down on them, he could hear the gunfire getting closer.

Up ahead there was a dusty square of cracked tarmac, where a number of creaking old taxis idled, at the point where the hill got steeper. From there onwards, the streets got narrower and the houses were piled jumbled on top of each other. A junction box on a lamppost had been tapped into and thick masses of wires were draped dangerously between the posts that lead up the steep slope.

"They're backing off." John pointed out.

"You mean we're going somewhere even heavily armed killers are scared of?" Harold asked nervously. He suddenly realised why the taxis were at the bottom of the slope, they were too scared to come any further.

They carried on up the winding road as it climbed through the slum. The buildings were little blocks of concrete, brightly painted, a few floors high, tin rooves and bars on the doors and windows. Narrow alleyways, barely wide enough for one person, disappeared into the dark. As they carried on through, Harold became aware of people in the dark, watching them intently. The noisy rattling of their injured moped was not making it easy to go through unnoticed.

"Take it easy." John cautioned.

Harold became aware of shadows up ahead and he felt that panic begin to rise again. His night vision wasn't perfect so it took him a moment to realise the road was being blocked by four men sat on chrome and black motorbikes. He looked back and forth for another route but there wasn't a path wide enough to take the moped and he was fairly sure he couldn't outrun any of them.

"Hey gringos!" One of them shouted as he got off his bike and stalked towards them. He was dressed in black jeans, a white muscle vest and a red bandanna, both of his muscular arms were covered in tattoos, that stretched under the vest and up his neck. He had a sawn-off shotgun in his hands and suddenly he pulled it up and shot it, sending buckshot into the floor just in front of Harold and John. It had the desired effect and Harold screeched to a halt.

"You shouldn't be here," he warned. He stepped forward, and suddenly Harold realised that they were surrounded, with more, similarly dressed men stepping out of the shadows. Harold looked at him closer and realised with horror that he was only a teenager. Not that his age made him less of a threat.

The software engineer was frozen in place, but behind him, John held his hands up in the air and then slowly and almost lazily stepped off and away from the bike. Harold followed suit, in his fear, dropping the bike on the floor.

"No queremos problemas." [We don't want problems.] John said, his voice quiet but deadly.

"¿No? Then you in the wrong place my friend."

Harold felt the statement wasn't wrong.

"I'm a friend of Carmella Gaviria Arbeláez." John said calmly. "I need to see her."

There was a pause as the young man in front of them thought about it, clearly shocked by the revelation, perhaps almost as much as Harold himself. He glanced over at his friend, but his face was blank and focussed ahead on the gangster in front of them. The young man got out his small burner phone and made a call. He had a quick whispered conversation and frowned at what he'd been told.

"¡Vamos!" he said eventually, gesturing with his shotgun to an alley between two shuttered up shops. "I take you to her."

John flashed Harold a grin, and then lead the way.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Harold had never felt claustrophobia until he was being lead down that narrow alleyway, surrounded by gangsters, to God knows where. The houses on either side were mostly shut up and barred, as you'd expect in the middle of the night. One had the door open and the sounds of a TV with the sound lowered coming from it. Light from the television spilling out onto the street and casting weird shadows as it flickered. Harold kept his head down, needing to watch where he was going in the dark and on the uneven ground, but he risked a quick glance through the doorway and saw a sparsely furnished room with a man asleep on a sofa, a pair of children asleep on a single mattress in the corner, their limbs tangled together, a thin blanket pulled up lovingly over them.

They turned down a side alley, so steep that someone had wedged some paving slabs into the dirt path as steps. They wobbled slightly underfoot, making Harold feel even more insecure. They turned again and onto a small patio in front of a narrow three storey house painted pale blue. The cement was crumbling at the corner but the patio had been swept and someone had made the effort of putting a couple of plants in pots on the corner. Beyond the patio, the maze of houses carried on, dropping down steeply. As with a lot of the other houses there was a metal gate on the door and bars on the windows, but whoever lived there had left the gate open, so didn't appear to be all that concerned about security.

The tattooed teen rapped his knuckles on the door and shouted. "¡Oye! ¡Abrir Mel!" [Hey! Open up Mel!]

There was a pause and then there was a twitch at the curtains and a face came to the window in the floor above. They disappeared and then after a moment they could hear a key turning in the lock. The door opened and a pretty mixed-race woman opened the door. She was slim, in her thirties and had long hair braided into thin dreadlocks. She was dressed in what looked to be pyjamas, with a long thin cardigan thrown on over the top.

She took in the odd assortment of men on her patio sleepily and then her jaw fell open as she exclaimed, "John!" and rushed forward at him to wrap him in a hug.

Harold watched with amusement as his friend was engulfed in a bear hug. The reaction had surprised Harold, but it seemed to have surprised John almost as much. The normally reserved man took a moment to react and reciprocate the gesture. He had a small smile on his face, but Harold caught a glimpse of some deeper emotion underneath it too. At the door, a dark-skinned man appeared, leaning on the doorframe, wearing a pair of boxer shorts and a bewildered expression on his face. He seemed to be as in the dark about what was happening as the computer programmer was. For a moment Harold wondered if that would cause a problem, the woman who was tightly hugging John was clearly his girlfriend or wife. Wife, Harold confirmed, noticing wedding rings.

When they pulled out of the hug, the woman, Carmella, grasped his arms and looked at him. "John! What are you doing here?" She looked him up and down. "You're hurt."

"This is John?" The man at the door said, his English more heavily accented than Carmella's, but clear. His face broke into a welcoming grin, "Come in." He stepped back and gestured for them to enter the house.

The woman smiled at the gangster and his friends, who had now lost their menacing demeanours and now watched the heartfelt reunion uncertainly. They looked even younger in their awkwardness, although no doubt no less deadly. "Gracias Rico. Dile a mi hermano que tenga cuidado. ¿Acuerdas?" [Thanks Rico. Tell my brother to be careful, won't you?] The young man nodded in agreement and they turned and left.

"Gracias Carmella." John said in a low voice as they were ushered inside. He seemed almost embarrassed by the attention now, almost as though he didn't believe he deserved the warm welcome that he'd received. "I'm sorry for coming here, I had no other choice."

"I'm glad you did John." Carmella said. "It looks like you need me."

As Harold entered the house, he looked round with interest as he tried to make sense of where he'd been brought. The front door opened into a room that had a large sofa and a television in the front half of the room and a kitchen with dining table at the back of it. It was sparsely furnished but both sofa and tv looked larger and more expensive than he would have expected. A set of rickety wooden stairs were in the corner and lead up to the next level. At the top of the stairs were three small children, watching the strangers with an intense curiosity. Harold smiled at them and the youngest, a little girl with wild afro hair waved back at him shyly. The oldest, a boy of about nine placed a finger over his lips, Harold gave him a slight nod, a silent pact that he wouldn't tell on them. He was sure that John had noticed the little eavesdroppers as well, very little got passed that man, but their parents were more concerned with making their new guests comfortable.

"John, sit down before you fall down."

"I'm fine, I…" he started to protest.

"You're bleeding all over my floor," she pointed out.

Harold watched as John looked down at himself and took in the bloody shirt and red-smeared footprints he'd tracked in. Now that he was starting to relax, the last of the adrenaline was seeping from him, and he was so strung-out and over-tired that for a second he looked like a little, lost boy. But then his expression hardened and he shook his head. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have come, we're putting your family at risk. Come on Harold, let's go." He turned to leave but she blocked his exit.

"Oh no you don't." She put a hand up to stop him. "Sit. Harold is it? Tell this stubborn man to let me patch you both up."

For a moment it looked like John was going to argue further, but then he gave in and sank into a chair. He seemed exhausted and glassy-eyed and Harold suddenly worried about how hard the man had been pushing himself over the last week.

"We're really grateful." Harold smiled at his hosts. "It's been a difficult few days, and John doesn't exactly look after himself."

Carmella smiled wistfully, "I remember." She went for a cupboard and retrieved a medical kit, placing it on the table and looking through its contents. Her husband started the coffee machine. "I don't suppose you can tell me what happened?"

John and Harold glanced at each other and then stayed silent.

She nodded. "I thought so. Do I need to call my brother?"

John thought about it, Harold wondered again how John knew these people, they certainly hadn't come up in the background check. "Would you be able to get him to watch the house? Maybe some more ammo. And I have a friend on the way. When she gets here I'll need a forger. She'll bring money, we can pay."

"I'll call him. Now, come on," she said to John, "shirt off."

Begrudgingly, John pulled his shirt off, revealing a deep gash above his hip from where the bullet had scored into his skin and muscle. Carmella let out a little gasp, and suddenly her eyes were starting to fill up. From across the room, her husband was staring too.

"Come on," John said. "It's not that bad. If I wrap it well enough it'll hold until I can get some stitches put in."

Harold knew though that it wasn't his current injury that was causing them upset, although that in itself was rather gory, it was the evidence of all the other injuries that had been done to him. Carmella, to her credit, recovered quickly, and her husband turned back to make coffee. When a mug was put in front of him, Harold accepted it gratefully, not wanting to refuse and upset the couple who had already offered them so much. He settled back into his chair and listened as John asked about her family as though they were old friends catching up over coffee.  
***

Once John had been patched up and Harold had insisted that he was not in need of first aid, they were lead up two flights of wooden stairs to bed. Carmella and her husband, Luiz, had offered to share their bed with their two young girls so that their two guests could have the girl's room. While the rest of the house was quite empty, it was clear that the couple doted on their kids. The walls of the room had been painted with a jungle mural, and a large dollhouse was in the corner of the room. Cuddly toys had to be moved off the Disney princess patterned bedsheets before they could get in. The girls didn't seem to mind that they had to give up their beds though, in fact the boy was quite disappointed he hadn't been asked to do the same. As soon as he'd caught a glimpse of John from the top of the stairs, he seemed to be fascinated by him.

Harold was tired, he wished he could sleep, but instead he had spent hours staring at the ceiling. He looked over at John who was curled up on his side in the too-small bed, his faced still lined in exhaustion. The ex-operative seemed surprisingly relaxed in this house, with these people. Carmella had explained that she and her husband were both local school teachers and only had very loose ties with the men who had brought them to the house, but that hadn't been enough for Harold, not after all the threats and gunfire they'd been subjected to that evening, coupled with the cryptic talk about a mysterious and dangerous sounding brother.

When it started to get light behind the thin curtains, Harold gave up. He got out of bed and slipped out of the room. Although they were on the top floor of the three-story house, the staircase continued up and light filtered down through a door that had been left ajar. He went up and it lead out onto a rooftop patio. The patio had a low wall. Harold went to stand beside it and look down. The view took his breath away. The sprawl of tiny houses spread out in front of him, dropping steeply down the hill, so that there was a mass of rooftops dotted with satellite dishes, big blue water butts and washing. There were forest covered mountains on either side and the slum stretched down into the valley between them. Eventually the buildings got bigger, the roads wide enough to be visible until they made way for the huge tower blocks of the centre. The city seeped throughout the valley, crawling up the mountainsides on all sides. The sky was beginning to lighten beyond the hazy mountains, turning from black to purple to a deep blue streaked through with pink and orange clouds as he watched. Harold thought it looked vaguely dystopian and yet quite beautiful at the same time.

"It's quite a view isn't it?" Carmella said, coming up beside him, making him jump. She had a cup of coffee cradled in her hands and took a sip.

"It's quite lovely." The computer programmer agreed.

"The sunrises are almost always amazing. You know, when everything becomes too hard, I come up here and remind myself that life is beautiful if you can take the time to look for it."  
There was a pause as they both allowed that thought to sink in. The sun, a deep orange colour was just starting to peek over the mountains behind them.

"John is a lot different to how I remember him," she said eventually.

"In what way?" Harold suddenly found himself quite desperate to find out what his employee had been like before.

"He's more serious now, and sad. He tries to hide it, but I can see it when he thinks I'm not paying attention."

Harold knew he had to be careful with what he said. "He's had a tough few years," he settled for.

She nodded, "I could see that." Harold knew she was talking about the scars and felt a pang of guilt. "But he's been heartbroken too."

"A couple of times," he admitted. "Including once, quite recently."

"He always did care about people too much. It surprised me, for a soldier."

"Can I ask how you met?"

Carmella sighed, "I grew up here, but I never really felt like I belonged. My brother is much older than me and when he was a teenager he started climbing the ranks in the local gang. By the time I was ten, my mother had died and he was looking after me. He's a criminal, but he's always done what's best for me, and by the time I was old enough he had earned enough to pay for me to go to university. I wanted to change things, so I got a job in government, but I was from the slum, so I was put in a secretarial position in the Venezuelan embassy in Bogota, Colombia. There is a lot of corruption in both countries, and I'd found that some of the people I worked with had links to the FARC guerillas and were turning a bling eye to the drug running and kidnapping they were using to fund their conflict.

"One day, I was approached by a good looking American man, and he told me that I could help bring down one of the biggest off-shoots of the FARC in Bogota, all I had to do was steal him some information. I was scared, but the organisation had been responsible for thousands of deaths and I thought that this might be my way to make a difference, so I did it. Demobilisation of the AUC paramilitaries was happening at the same time, and for the first time in decades it looked like things might be coming to an end. That night, the whole city shook with gunfire and then when it was over, the American appeared on my doorstep. He had been shot in the arm, but he wasn't there because he needed my help. He said that one of the FARC bosses had escaped and they knew it was me that had provided the American Army with the intel. There was a price on my head. He said that his superiors wanted to leave me, that I was collateral damage, but that he'd refused and that he'd gone AWOL and risked court martial to try to get me to safety.

"It took us three days to get here, we had to hide in trucks and trek through the jungle. He wouldn't rest until he safely delivered me back here where he knew my brother and his thugs could protect me. I don't agree with the way of life my brother has chosen, but he's always looked after me, and could offer me protection. They set me up with a new identity and I've lived here ever since. When I asked John why he risked his career and his life for me, he said that because he'd gotten me into this mess and because it was the right thing for him to do. He left to find a way back to his unit and I never heard from him again. Or at least not until he turned up on my doorstep last night, in much the same way as last time."

Harold smiled at the story. He would have liked to have met the man before tragedy and betrayal had done their best to break him. He was going to ask further questions when they were interrupted by a loud whistle from below them. They both looked over to see Rico stood outside the front door, looking fidgety.

"¡Oye!" he shouted up. "¿Mel, qué mierda han hecho tus amigos? ¡Todo el jodido ejército esta llegando!" [Hey! Mel, what shit have your friend's done? The whole fucking army is coming!"

Carmella looked at Harold in horror, "We have to get you out of here, now!"


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

John had woken up when he'd heard Harold leave the room. Seeing that it was barely light, he'd rolled over stiffly and tried to get back to sleep. He realised quickly it wasn't going to happen though, so instead he stretched out a hand and found the small pile of items neatly stacked on a chair beside the bed. Carmella and Luiz had provided them with towels, spare tee shirts and an old cell phone. He picked the phone up and dialled Sameen. It was switched off. There was no voicemail facility so he typed out a quick text, 'RVP compromised. Call me. J.'

He dialled the next number, hoping to at least find out what time Sameen's flight would be getting in, but that was switched off too. He was greeted with a gruff tone, "Hey, this is Detective Fusco, leave a message and I might call ya back." John took a mild enjoyment at rankling the other man, so he just said, "Call me back." at the beep and left it at that, knowing the detective would hate the abruptness. But really, he deserved it, John told himself. Why did the man think it was acceptable to turn his phone off while they were in the middle of a crisis?

He laid back in the too-small bed and thought about the plan. It wasn't going to be as easy as he'd hoped, not with those government agents looking for them, but perhaps it wouldn't need too much of an adjustment. Once Sameen arrived with the money and the passports, they could get in touch with the forger that had crafted Carmella's new identity, get the visa's put in and then start heading home, taking an indirect route back to New York. Perhaps they could get out of Venezuela via a land boarder, in case people were looking for them at the airport, get home via a short stay in Europe. As much as John appreciated their current change of scenery, he guessed that Harold would prefer a holiday where they were less likely to get shot at. The problem would be stopping whoever was after them from finding them again in New York. But he decided he would have to cross that bridge when he came to it. Right now, they were severely outnumbered and outgunned, it would be better to take them on back in New York where he would have the home field advantage, Harold would be safely behind his computer and where they couldn't just have large numbers of soldiers running around without causing a scene.

He concluded there was little he could do until Sameen arrived, for now he'd just have to be patient. John had a huge well of patience when doing surveillance, but that's because surveillance was in fact doing something. But he hated the moments like this, when there were things that had to be done but were being held up by circumstances out of his control. He couldn't even go to a shop and find some more suitable attire for them both as it was too early. He was tempted to try Sameen's phone again restlessly, as though the constant harassment might make her plane fly faster.

He was interrupted from doing so by an ear-piercing whistle from outside. John scrambled to the window and stuck his head out. He looked down and saw Rico's concerned face and that alone made him spring into action. He could hear what was being said, as he pulled on his clothes, stuffed the phone into his pocket and checked his weapons. He had seven bullets in the Colt handgun and half a mag left in the AK, a knife and still no shoes, it wouldn't be enough to take on a whole army, he had to hope they'd been given enough warning to get away.  
He dashed out of the room to find Harold and Carmella running down the stairs from the roof. "We need to get out of here now!" He ordered firmly to Harold. "Carmella, I want you to get Luiz and the kids and find somewhere to hide. Get Rico with you to protect you."

John banged on the bedroom door next to the one he and Harold had been sleeping in. A sleepy looking boy in shorts and tee shirt came to the door and John scooped him up, carrying him on his hip, even if the skinny boy was a little too old for that now. The boy yelped in surprise, but otherwise reacted to the shocking scenario quite well and allowed himself the indignity of being carted down the stairs. The next level down, Luiz appeared with one of the girls on each hip. The youngest was looking bewildered, but the middle child had worked out enough of what was going on to be terrified and was sobbing into her dad's tee shirt.

"Where does your brother live?" John asked as they all got to the front door and started fumbling with shoes. Luiz offered up a pair of hiking boots for John, they were a little on the small side but better than nothing.

"A few streets away." Carmella said, opening the door to Rico.

"¿Quantos?" John asked him sharply, it was clear who he was talking about. [How many?]

"No se. Mas que cuarenta." He said with a shrug. [I don't know. More than forty.]

"¿Cuánto tiempo hasta que estén aquí?" [How long until they get here?]

"Cinco minutos." He shrugged again. "Pero la gente aquÍ, no son soplones." [Five minutes. But the people here are not snitches.]

"Llevarlos a su hermano. ¡Rapidamente!" [Take them to her brother. Quickly!]

"¡Vamos Finch!" John snapped, forgetting for the moment which language he was supposed to be speaking. "Gracias Carmella, para todos." [Come on Finch! Thank you Carmella, for everything.]

He didn't wait for an answer, just shoved Harold none too gently out the front door. "Come on, we need to lure them away." He said, taking off up the narrow path, Harold limping along as fast as he could behind him. The slum was a maze, that he knew that the paramilitaries that were after them would not know any better than he did. He hoped he could keep them moving long enough to get them to the bottom of the hill and out into the main part of town. From there, they could perhaps commandeer a taxi and hide out somewhere else. Out on the main road behind them, he could hear the first sound of gunshots, likely the local gangs letting it be known that the government was not welcome.

A shot volley of bullets was suddenly fired at them and John pushed himself and Harold into a doorway and under a tin roof to avoid them. Peering out and scanning the difficult terrain, he spotted the first government goon, a man dressed in camo gear and with an assault rifle, poised on a rooftop and looking down at them. John took the time to breathe and get it right, and then took the man out with one shot to the head. The man twisted as he fell, crashed into the edge of the roof he was stood on and then slid off, landing over a mass of electrical wires. The impact wrenched some of the wires out from the post they were attached to, but the body stayed caught up in the majority of them, like a fly in a web. There was a couple of sparks and the body began to smoke.

"We need to move." John whispered, knowing any minute, there was likely to be a full blown electrical fire.

The two men kept running. John tried not to notice the smell of smoke and burning flesh, but suddenly someone screamed, there was a crash and then all hell broke loose. He glanced back and saw that the wooden post had set alight and come crashing down onto a neighbouring house. Flames were now licking up the wooden window frames and setting light to everything they touched. John knew the damage had the potential to be catastrophic. With the small houses close together, overloaded electrics and no access for fire crews, the fire would spread rapidly. He felt a pang of guilt at the devastation he'd unwittingly caused, but he couldn't think about that now. There would be time for self-recrimination later.

He could hear heavy booted feet running over the rooftops, although they were almost drowned out by the shouts and screams of the chaos they'd left behind. John pushed Harold on ahead of them, turning left and right, weaving their way down the steep hillside. It felt like being a rat in a maze. Even in combat, John retained a certain level of control, he usually had a back up plan, could create contingencies on the move, but here he felt totally at the mercy of the men who were after them.

Suddenly, a man wearing heavy armour with a machine gun dropped down in front of them from the low roof above. John raised his weapon and felled the man but two more took his place, and then another came out of nowhere and landed heavily on his back, knocking him to the dirt floor. John landed heavily onto his chest, knocking all the air out of him, his AK47 pinned awkwardly under him. The impact caused black dots to dance in front of his vision as he struggled to suck air back into his chest but he didn't let it stop him. He wriggled around, twisting beneath the large man and drawing the smaller, more manoeuvrable handgun out of the back of his waistband and firing a shot straight into the man's head.

The point-blank shot shattered the soldier's skull and painted his brains across the wall of the nearest building. He slumped down, pinning John underneath him. He tried to extricate himself but the ground was muddy and he slipped.

"Run!" He yelled at Harold, but instead of running, the older man reached out his hand and helped to drag him up. The other soldiers fired at him but he managed to tug the dead body in the way and the bullet's ended up being imbedded in the man's body armour. There were men closing in on them on either side now, for some reason looking reluctant to fire, so John aimed a kick at the front door beside them and popped the lock with ease. Harold didn't need to be told and disappeared inside the house. John now had the AK in his right hand and the Colt in his left. He paused long enough to spray a couple of shots with the AK in each direction, taking down his nearest pursuers before following him in.

They ran into the building, John was vaguely aware of a darkened living room with a few items of furniture in it. As they ran passed, John grabbed a low but heavy looking coffee table and dragged it in front of the door, hoping that if their pursuers weren't paying attention they might trip over it in the dim light. They aimed for the stairs, and John took them two at a time. At the top of the stairs were two rooms, with the paramilitaries hot on their heels, John had to make a split-second decision. He picked left and barged through into a bedroom. Ignoring the screaming couple in bed, John raced over to the room and opened the window. He threw the curtains open and the window. There was only a two foot jump between the window and the rooftop of the next building, it would be easy after the balcony jump of the previous evening. John jumped without thinking about it, landing heavily on the roof of the building opposite. He turned back around and gestured to Harold who was staring at him apprehensively as he clambered awkwardly through the window. It reminded him that although this was easy for John, even the small jump would jar Harold's back.

They weren't the only ones on the roof, and John had to take another couple of shots, to keep them at bay until Harold, landed beside him, his knees buckling under the fall. Further up the hill, smoke now billowed as the fire spread. There was still no sound of sirens, the emergency services reluctant to enter the slum, the nearest fire station far down the hill in the main part of the city. John hauled Harold to his feet, still firing his weapon, until the AK ran out of ammo. They carried on running, over the uneven rooftops. They came across a drop down of about four feet, as the steep hill to meant that no two houses were on the same level. John jumped down first and was helping Harold down when a blood-curdling scream called out, "John!"

John looked up and froze. Stood on a rooftop a few houses over was a group of soldiers, two of them were holding Carmella by the arms, and another was holding the young boy with a gun to his head. The boy was trying valiantly not to cry, his mother was sobbing. John clambered back up onto the higher roof and then stood with his hands in the air. Harold stumbled up beside him, mirroring his pose. John could see the older man's hands shaking, although that might be in part down to the exertion of their mad dash through the slum. Now that they were higher up they could see further back to the other men who were holding Luiz and the two girls at bay.

"¡Déjalos ir!" John shouted. [Let them go.]

"Stay where you are, and they won't get hurt," the man holding the boy growled.

John moved very slowly, tossing the handgun far out of his reach and then taking the strap of the empty AK47 and taking it over his shoulder, deliberately ensuring his hands were as far away from the trigger so as not to spook the men who held the gun to the boy. He dropped the rifle to his feet and then kicked it away from him. Then, from all around them, more soldiers arrived and approached them cautiously. Even though they had the upper hand they still seemed to be scared of John. Behind them, the fire raged on as proof of just how dangerous the man could be.

They went for John first, grabbing his wrists and moving them behind his back to be hand-cuffed, other's focusing on Harold just a fraction behind. John glanced at Harold, who reciprocated his grave look, they were in agreement. They had no choice, and John would not fight them, not while it put others at risk.

Just as the handcuffs snapped shut behind John's back, the young boy snarled and sank his teeth into the hand of the man who was holding him. The soldier pulled back in surprise and shock and the boy broke free. The skinny kid shoved the man in an attempt to get away from him. It was clear to all watching that the boy was just aiming to get back to his dad, but the soldier reacted on instinct and his finger closed on the trigger almost automatically.

The shot was deafening to everyone watching and made soldier and hostage alike flinch in fear. The boy was already halfway back to his father, when the bullet exploded in his chest, spraying blood as he collapsed face first in the dirt. There was a beat where no one could quite believe what had happened, and then Carmella wailed, "¡Juan!" and her knees gave out. The soldiers holding her let her go and she crawled to her son and scooped him up into her arms.

John's knees gave out too and he sank to them in despair, unable to take his eyes off the distraught mother and child. When the paramilitaries grabbed him by the arms and hauled him to his feet he barely noticed. When they marched him towards the stairs to take him down through someone's house to the street, his legs were numb and he stumbled, unable to get his feet to work. The air was thick with smoke now, he got a fleeting glimpse of bright flames and at last the morning was cut through with the sounds of sirens as aid rushed towards them. As they were pulled up through the streets, someone yelled at him and threw something heavy, which glanced off the side of his head but he didn't care. As they got back up to the main road where an old jeep was waiting for them to be bundled into back of, a fire truck pulled up and a woman rushed out to them cradling a baby who appeared to be suffering from smoke inhalation. John didn't even notice the tears marring his vision as a black hood was shoved over his head and then a punch to the face landed him in the dirt.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

"John!" Harold whispered. He was worried about the other man, he had seen him collapse as they were caught, a look of utter defeat in his eyes, and the way he could barely stand as they were dragged to the jeep. They were bumping along in the back of a jeep now. Harold was sat uncomfortably, wedged in the corner, hands cinched behind his back, the hood over his head making it difficult to breathe. He couldn't see the man beside him and he'd been silent since they'd been captured, but whenever they bumped over a particularly large pothole, they were thrown together, and from that he could tell that the other man was laying down beside him. Sat there in the darkness that the hood created, he found himself replaying the mornings events over and over, trying to work out if he'd missed his friend sustaining an injury. There had been a punch, but he knew from experience how hard-headed John was. This thought made him worry even more.

"John!" he hissed again, with a renewed urgency.

"Mmm?" the half-hearted reply.

"Are you hurt?"

"No Finch," he replied, his voice cold and devoid of all emotion. For a second, Harold wasn't convinced of his friend's truthfulness, but then the reality sank in. It was the deadened voice that John had used when he'd told Harold he was leaving, when he'd awoken to be told that Joss was gone, the tone he'd used when he'd turned down Harold's initial job offer, stood under the Queensborough bridge all those years ago. It was a tone that frightened the older man more than he'd care to admit, because it was the one problem he'd never be able to fix no matter how much money he threw at it.

"John! You did all you could, what happened wasn't your fault," he tried, but he knew it wouldn't work and the silence he received seemed to prove the futility. Throughout this whole horrible misadventure, it had been the ex-soldier pushing him and keeping him going. Now, with John in the depths of despair, Harold felt as alone as he had in the days after the ferry bombing.  
***

"Shit!" Sameen cursed as she turned her phone on in the taxi on the way from the airport and John's brief message came through. She showed the screen to Lionel who was sat beside her checking his voicemails.

"Yeah, I just got something with words to that effect to," he said.

Sameen called the number but it went straight to voicemail. She hung up without leaving a message. "Either he has no signal or he's in trouble," she reported.

"Wonderboy always finds his way to trouble." Lionel pointed out.

Sameen nodded her agreement, it was possible that cell service in a city with less than perfect facilities was intermittent, but when had fate ever handed them the simpler explanation? She tried again, just in case, but got nothing. Their long series of flights down, had managed to fray her nerves, not having much of a tolerance for waiting around, and now they'd been stuck in traffic all the way for the airport. "This is worse than rush hour in New York." she muttered.

As they approached the city centre, the reason for the traffic became clearer. They were held up completely as a large group of people crossed the street a few cars in front of them. They were chanting and holding banners that were hard to read at the angle they were at. The huge group of protestors were met with beeping horns and colourful abuse from the surrounding drivers but it had no effect.

"What's happening?" Lionel asked the driver, in that slightly slow way that people talk when they're trying to be understood in another language.

"Protest," the driver replied in broken English, shrugging his shoulders.

"¿Por que?" Sameen tried instead. [Why?]

"Hubo un gran incendio en el barrio bajo esta manana. La gente cupla al gobierno." [There was a great fire in the slum this morning. The people blame the government.]

Sameen frowned, "¿Por que? ¿Que occuré?" [Why? What happened?]

"Policía Federal tuvo un tiroteo enorme. Buscando a alguien. Siempre usan violencia para resolver sus problemas, y siempre nos causa más problemas para nosotros." [Federal police had a huge firefight. Looking for someone. They always use violence to solve their problems, and it always causes more problems for us.]

The questioning had clearly gotten the taxi driver riled up, and he started waxing lyrical about the government and its wider issues along with some strong opinions on how things should be run. Sameen couldn't exactly say she disagreed with his assessment, but some of his views were bordering on treasonous. She relayed what the man had said to Lionel. Up ahead, the chanting got louder and then there was a smash of glass followed by cheering. The protest seemed to be escalating.

"You think Glasses and Tall, Dark and Deranged were caught up in it?" he asked, keeping his voice low. The taxi driver didn't appear to be listening, too focussed on his rant, but you never could tell.

"It would be just like them to cause a city-wide riot."

"Destruction is John's middle name." Lionel replied wryly. "We're not going to get any further here." He nodded in the direction of the chaos up ahead.

"You're right." Sameen agreed. "Salimos aquí." She told the driver and paid him what he was owed. [We're getting out here.]

"What now?" Lionel asked as they got their bags out and stood on the sidewalk, ignoring the grumbling from the driver who had just lost his fare.

"We need to regroup. Find a place to dump our bags and then look for our boys."

"Fantastic." Lionel grumbled, looking around. "Any idea where we are?"

They were just off a large overpass, but there was little to tell them where they were. So far they had passed a lot of residential properties, some factories and warehouses, but nothing resembling a hotel. "We could follow the protestors." Sameen pointed out. "You'd think they'd be on the way to somewhere central. And we might find out a little more about what happened."

"I'm so glad I decided to leave New York." Lionel grumbled as he pulled the handle up on his suitcase and trundled along after the small ex-assassin.  
***

By the time they actually found a hotel, Lionel was exhausted. His feet hurt from pounding on the hard sidewalk and he was sweaty and stressed. He hated protests, and not having anything to do with them anymore had been a big reason to do the detective's exam. Not that he had anything against free speech, but there was too much pushing and shoving for his liking and there was always an element that used it as an excuse to smash things up. That element had definitely been out in force today, young men masked up so that only their eyes were showing, throwing bricks and bottles at a police car that was trying to get through the crowd to an emergency. The atmosphere of violence was so strong that Lionel could almost taste it. Sameen obviously could too, which Lionel considered odd for someone who had all the emotional range of a dead fish, but she almost seemed to be keyed up by it. Her emotions may have been dulled but there was little wrong with her adrenaline, and she enjoyed it.

After a walk that Lionel had considered far too long, especially when having to avoid getting swept up in the crowds, they'd found a hotel. It was a generic business hotel, but what it lacked in character it made up for in hot water pressure. They'd paid up front for rooms side by side and Lionel had been relieved to dump his bag on the bed and take a shower. He let the hot water soak over him, releasing the muscles that ached from long hours cramped into too small airline seats and a night spent asleep in an airport lounge in Panama, and tried to clear his mind. This was the most time he'd ever spent with Little Miss Sunshine and she'd managed to grate on his nerves.

Once he decided he was in danger of using up enough hot water for the entire hotel, he switched the shower off, scrubbed himself dry and wrapped his towel around his waist before shuffling back into the bedroom. He stopped in his tracks when he found Sameen sat his bed with the TV on. She'd clearly showered, her hair was still wet, although her clothes looked fresh they were exactly the same as the last ones, black vest and black jeans. She'd rifled through his suitcase and had found a bag of cookies which she was munching through as her eyes were glued to the news channel she was watching.

"How'd you get in here?" Lionel whinged, grabbing some clean clothes from his bag and marching back into the bathroom to get changed in privacy.

"What were you doing for so long in the shower?" she smirked.

It took Lionel a beat to realise what she was implying, it gave him the urge to throw something at her but all he had in his hand was his wet towel and that really would be taking it too far. "Hiding from you," he snapped. "Don't suppose the news has any updates on our wayward friends." They had tried asking a few people on the march for further details, but they'd receiving varying answers, it seemed almost everyone had a bone to pick with the government about something and the catalyst had been what had happened that morning, which few people knew many details about.

"The news is saying that the government was there to apprehend dangerous international criminals. They say they started the fire and one of them also shot a young boy."

"What?" Lionel frowned. "Firstly, I cannot imagine any scenario where our professor looks like a dangerous international criminal. Secondly, even blindfolded, Reese is too good a shot to have hurt a civilian."

Sameen nodded, "I agree. If there was a child anywhere near them, he would have found another way. He's sentimental like that."

Lionel raised his eyebrow at the woman's definition of the word sentimental. "Does it say what happened to them?"

"The newsreader seems to be congratulating the police on apprehending the two suspects. It doesn't say what they were wanted for or where they were taken."

"We should get to the scene, find us someone who can tell us what really happened."

Sameen nodded. "Two gringos in the slum after another two caused a fire? We may not get the best reception."

Lionel barked a laugh at her. "I've spent most of my career as a cop in the Bronx, you think I ain't used to that? Come on, let's go, maybe we can get you something to eat that doesn't come from a bakery on the way."  
***

They'd been travelling all day, the road getting progressively bumpier, until it felt like they'd left the road completely. Harold and John had slipped into a silence, both too preoccupied with their thoughts and inner demons. By the time they were done, Harold ached all over and his spine and leg had seized almost completely and no amount to fidgeting could ease the numbness in his backside. In all that time, John had barely moved. When they came to a halt, there were some rapid commands barked and then there were hands around his arms hauling him up painfully.

With the hood still on, he stumbled painfully, his legs full of pins and needles and unable to walk at the speed that his captors clearly expected of him. The ground was uneven and muddy and the sounds of birds in the trees suggested that they had driven back into the forest. He wondered it John had been paying attention to the twists and turns they'd done, whether the other man had been able to estimate how far they'd come, but considering his lethargy he doubted it. Harold wondered if he should have tried to do it himself, but decided quickly that it was a spy skill to which he was unaccustomed and that he'd be fairly useless at anyway.

They were marched into a building that judging by the echo of their feet on the concrete was mostly empty. There was the sound of heavy metal doors being pulled open and them they were taken into a further room, the doors slamming shut behind them. This room was noisy, with the sound of fans whirring and electrics buzzing. Despite the fans it was hot, like something was belting out a lot of heat. Harold recognised it almost immediately as housing a somewhat crudely created set up for a supercomputer.

He was given a hard shove and landed heavily on a metal chair. Movement near him, suggested that John had been subjected to the same, although the other man made no noise of pain or protest. Harold felt one of the metal bracelets of the handcuffs release momentarily, before snapping shut again, only now with his arms looped through the chair. He tried to subtly test the chair's sturdiness by trying to rock it ever so slightly forward but he found it had been bolted to the floor.

Suddenly the hood was tugged off his head and he was given a view of the room. It was as he'd expected, a huge warehouse fitted with cooling units. In the centre was a desk on wheels with a set-up of screens and a couple of keyboards attached to cables that ran to a collection of huge processing units. A couple of men were stood at the computer set up discussing something in hushed tones. Yet more men were stood around in their paramilitary gear, cradling their assault rifles. Across from Harold, John was slumped in his chair, chin resting on his chest, legs spread wide enough to brace himself from slipping off it completely. They hadn't taken the hood off him, but Harold could see from his posture he looked utterly defeated. He hoped it was a ruse to lure them into a false sense of security, but he doubted it.

"You're a hard man to track down Harold Finch." A voice rang out over the sound of the air conditioning units. A middle-aged man with grey hair entered the room and stalked over to him. He was casually dressed in suit trousers and a shirt that was open at the neck and with sleeves rolled to his elbows, but Harold recognised expensive when he saw it and this man's shirt and his polished shoes screamed money. He seemed to be in good shape, had a light tan and a smile that reminded the computer programmer of a wolf. His speech was lightly accented but his English was perfect. Harold guessed immediately that he was government.

"I'm a very private person." Harold replied tersely, thinking that eventually he might have to get that phrase inscribed on his gravestone.

"Indeed. It appears not even your own government has been able to keep track of you. Of course, it would have been easier if it weren't for your guard dog here." He stalked towards the men and gave John a little vicious kick to the leg as he passed him by. John didn't even flinch. "It's amazing what loyalty money will buy. I wonder how long that loyalty will last under pressure of a different sort."

Harold tried to stay steady but he knew he'd flinched at the veiled threat, and what was worse was the man had seen it.

"Ah, so it's not just money that's keeping you two inseparable then, that makes things more convenient," the man said. "I know you're an intelligent man Mr Finch, so I know you already know what I want from you. But I have a desire to skip over the part where you feign ignorance and pretend we have the wrong person. My employers admire your work greatly. So much so that we have had a team of people trying to create one just like yours for years. But it seems that these imbeciles just can't seem to get it right." He shot a glance over at the two men at the computer who looked sheepish at the admonishment.

"If you wanted a lesson in coding, the polite thing to do would have been to ask." Harold pointed out. He was completely unsure where this boldness had come from but he found he couldn't help himself. John's snarky personality must have been rubbing off on him, he realised.

"And I'm sure that a man who sold his program to the United States for a dollar and then faked his death would just roll over and give it to us. Nice touch using a bomb to eradicate yourself by the way, there are definitely easier ways but it was very effective, and your business partner being collateral damage was a nice touch."

Harold bristled at that, and the other man smiled. His interrogator knew he was getting to him, he observed. Perhaps the other man also thought that he'd be turning John against him too, it was a good thing their bond was stronger than that. Of course, the thought then crossed his mind that if John really had given up, then perhaps whatever friendship they had would become dulled under the pressure of guilt. After all, it was Harold that had gotten them into this, what if the ex-operative blamed him for young Juan's death?

"I don't know what you expect, the program took me almost a decade. Even knowing what I did, to teach a machine to learn, it would take me years."

"Start by looking at the program before you get all high and mighty," one of the programmers stood by the computer said grumpily. "You might find you're not the only genius in the room."

Harold rolled his eyes at the man's ego. That was just what he needed. "Well it doesn't really matter because I won't do it. If I cannot even trust my own government to handle it responsibly then why should I believe yours is any better? I won't make the same mistake twice."

"I think you're missing the point. If you want you and your friend to get out of here alive then you will fix our program."

Harold shook his head. He prepared himself to get hit, but it was still a shock. It was one of the uniform-clad thugs that did it, sending a knuckle-cracking punch to his jaw, causing his teeth to clatter together and his head to snap back. It caused grey spots to explode across his vision. He barely had time to recover before another hit was delivered to his stomach. All the air was forced out of his lungs and left him gasping, sucking in great hyperventilating breaths. A third hit was enough to bring tears to his eyes. The pain was intense, worse than anything he'd felt since the bombing, but he knew the stakes were too high to give in, so he braced himself for the next hit.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Harold was tensed and awaiting the next hit. His aggressor's hand was pulled back, ready to go again, when John growled "Stop it!" from beneath the hood. As usual, his deep rasp managed to get the attention of the whole room without even raising his voice.

"I don't think you understand the game we are playing here."

"Oh, I understand perfectly." His voice was barely above a whisper, yet even chained up and hooded, he managed to make the soldiers in the room nervous, Harold could see them shifting slightly on the balls of their feet, his performance in the slum and in the hotel the night before having made a lasting impression. "He is going to be no good to you if he's too beat up to think straight."

"So, are you guaranteeing he works for us?"

"Now, that's down to him. Personally, I hope he doesn't give you shit."

John took the first punch to the head in stoic silence, it was Harold that couldn't contain his gasp of horror. There was another punch, and another. With the hood on, John was unable to see where the hits were coming from and react accordingly, and yet he took the punches without so much as a grunt. Harold though felt like he was experiencing every hit, and it felt worse than if they'd been done to him.

John's lack of reaction was making his assailant angry though and when he didn't respond to an uppercut to his chin, the militia thug yanked the hood off, "Are you even alive in there?"  
As John's face was revealed, Harold felt a pang of dismay. The other man's eyebrow had split under a blow and blood had run down into his eye and down his cheek, that to Harold looked almost like a tear. When the material had been pulled away it had caught the thick, already clotting blood on his brow and smeared it up to his hairline and into the salt and pepper hair above his temple. But Harold had seen his friend bloodied before, it was his expression that concerned him. Rather than angry, which is what Harold would have expected, John just looked tired.

When the soldier began taunting him, it was clear he'd been expecting angry too, or at least upset. "I saw the look on your face when I shot that child," he sneered. "Was he yours?"  
Harold had a moment of panic over that. Had this cruel man stumbled onto something that even he hasn't considered? John had said he had been in Venezuela in 2004, and the boy seemed to be the right age. There also seemed to be a gap in years between the boy and the two little girls, and he was called Juan. Carmella really seemed to care for John, even after so long apart, could it be that she was the mother of his child? If that was the case, had John even known he was a father? Were it true, Harold knew there would never be a way to bring the once-suicidal man out of his despair.

Oblivious to the workings of Harold's mind, the soldier forged on in his mission to get a reaction out of John. "You know they're saying you killed him. You killed him and caused the fire. I could hang you in the middle of the Plaza Bolívar right now, and the people would cheer."

Harold knew that normally that would be exactly the thing to ignite the ex-spy's rage, God knows, the thought of it was making the mild-mannered software engineer angry. But John barely lifted his head from where it was resting on his chest. Harold caught a glimpse of his grey-blue eyes and knew instantly that the man didn't care that he was taking the blame because he was already blaming himself. The soldier picked up the rifle that he still had slung across his chest and rammed the butt of it into John's jaw. John spat blood and what looked like a broken molar onto the floor but said nothing.

"Please stop!" Harold begged, unable to take his friend's cruel treatment anymore. He realised now that the tables had turned. Since the moment that John had been given Harold's number, he'd done everything in his power to protect him and drag him through the hell they'd found themselves in. Now John was done, the last of his energy spent, and it was going to be down to Harold if they were going to get through this next ordeal. He doubted greatly that he was up to the task but he had to try.

"I'll do what you ask, just leave him alone," Harold continued.

The soldier looked disappointed as the man in the shirt waved him away. John looked disappointed in him too.

"Bring the terminal over."

The two programmers beside the computer set-up wheeled the desk in front of Harold. They studied him with a mix of annoyance and trepidation. Harold mused that he probably didn't look like much, with the way he'd limped in there dressed in week old filthy clothes, wrists in shackles. He supposed that had he been told that someone was going to come in and fix something that he'd spent years working on, he would be aggravated too. As the desk was drawn up to him, he glanced over at John, but the other man was resting his chin back down on his chest despondently as though he barely had the strength to keep his eyes open.

Harold peered at the lines of code that were visible on the screens in front of him. It was just a partial of the work that had been done, but from what he could tell, it seemed to be a superior piece of coding. If the rest of the program was anything like this, Harold knew that they would be close to bringing it online. He moved instinctively to touch the keyboard and scroll down to continue his study but his hands pulled against the cuffs that were looped through his chair. "If you want me to work on this I'm going to need my hands." He pointed out. At the incredulous look he received he rolled his eyes. "What exactly do you expect me to do? There are eight of you, you're armed to the teeth and you have my friend here locked up. We've had nothing to eat or drink in almost a day, I need the bathroom and I need my hands free to work." He surprised himself with his list of demands, but being sat in front of a computer was familiar, it was comforting and it gave him courage.

Reluctantly, their captors agreed. They were escorted at gunpoint in turn out to a simple bathroom, where Harold took the opportunity to relieve himself and wash his hands, arms and face. He stared at himself in the cracked mirror above the sink and barely recognised himself. His face was drawn, pale in some places, sunburned red in others and his eye was already starting to discolour and swell. This was John's world, he realised. A world full of pain and terror that he'd repeatedly been sent into since the day he signed those Army papers two decades ago. Harold wasn't sure he'd ever hated the US government so much, not only for the way they'd used the technological gift he'd given them, but for the complete disregarded for human life that they'd repeatedly shown his friend. For the last two and a half years he'd seen the toll those years had taken on the ex-operative, and now similar circumstances came to him, he had no idea how he would cope. He still had nightmares from a short weekend a few years ago.

"I suppose I should thank you Root, for easing me into the world of kidnapping and torture gently," he murmured to the mirror, before taking a deep breath and getting back to the task at hand.

The trip to the bathroom had gone some way to making him more alert and when he went and sat back in front of the computer terminal they allowed him to remain uncuffed. He hoped that when John was returned that he would be afforded the same consideration, but it appeared they did not trust him not to make a move, and the cuffs went straight back on him. Harold knew when to pick his battles and continued to read through the work in front of him, making subtle changes that were scrutinised by the two other programmers as he went.

Despite himself, he managed to get absorbed in the work. It would take him a long time to read through a code as complex as this, but he was moving through it at a rapid pace as he got more impressed by what he was looking at. It was becoming clear that a large team had been assembled to create it. Some of the work was truly inspired, short cuts and equations that even he would never have thought of, while other areas felt clunky and overcomplicated, like they had tried to contort existing ideas into something new instead of starting from scratch. He found himself deleting large portions of text and rewriting his own simpler, more elegant solutions, before reminding himself just what would happen once he completed his task.

About an hour into their work, they were presented with a couple of bottles of water and some sandwiches. Harold took the cap off the water and took a long gulp. The water was cool and tasted amazing on his parched and dusty throat. But then he realised that their captors had no intention of releasing John's hands to let him drink or eat. He picked up the bottle and plate of sandwiches and moved over to the man. The soldiers in the room bristled at the brazen movement, but he ignored them as best he could and knelt down stiffly beside the other man's chair.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered as he raised the water bottle to John's cracked lips and helped him drink. The movement wasn't that easy, and as he lowered the bottle back down traces of blood swirled down into the water. "I should have never let it get this far."

"It's okay Harold." John mumbled round the swelling in his jaw, his voice barely audible for Harold and certainly not for anyone else. "You had to sell it." And then he gave him a steely look, not to be messed with. "You know you can't let them have this."

Harold was about to reply when one of the soldiers grabbed at his collar and pulled him back, "¡Callaté!" he commanded, throwing him back down into his seat. [Shut up!]

"You try to communicate again and I will put a bullet through your friend!" the well-dressed man warned.

Harold nodded and ducked his head back down to focus on his work, John's warning echoing in his head.


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Sameen paid the taxi and followed Lionel as he climbed out of the car. It had taken them an age to be able to flag the vehicle down and even longer to get across town with roadblocks and protests still in full swing. Now the fact that the driver flat out refused to take them up the hill into the slum itself, had really riled Lionel who had already been grumpy before any of this had even started. Sameen had already threatened to throttle him twice if he didn't shut up, and he'd finally taken the hint and kept his grumblings to himself.

She supposed she could have threatened the driver to make him take them up the hill, she'd picked up a pair of sharp flick knives at a market on their way over, but she didn't want to draw any more attention to themselves. The only reason the taxi driver had agreed to take them as far as he had was because she had explained that Lionel was a reporter and she was a photographer looking to cover the fire and write an impassioned piece on the plight of the poor for a paper back home. She didn't have press credentials and the backpack they carried held bottled water and a first aid kit rather than camera equipment, but luckily the driver hadn't questioned too hard. After all, why else would a pair of gringos go somewhere they were so likely to be robbed.

Sameen had rolled her eyes at that comment, but for once had held her tongue. She was well travelled enough to know that while vigilance was important, most places weren't usually as bad as the reputation that proceeded them. As they started to march up the hill in the fading evening light, the place was busy with most people going about their business. It was Saturday, and while further down in the city, people were enjoying their weekend, the poor were still going about their work day.

Lionel was following along nervously, as though he expected danger appear around every corner, until they came across a group of kids of varying ages that had taken over the street for their soccer game. The goal posts were marked out with discarded tee shirts, the players were in flipflops and the teams were completely uneven, the steep incline of the street meant that one team had to shoot uphill, but it didn't seem to matter to anyone involved. The children were so absorbed in their game that they didn't notice the two adults until too late and the ball landed smack into Lionel's leg with a loud thwacking sound. Sameen watched with amusement, half expecting the cranky detective to yell at them, but instead, he stopped the ball with his foot and then booted it uphill and through the imaginary goal, dumbfounding the goalkeeper who hadn't been expecting it and reacted far too late and probably dumbfounding Lionel himself just a little bit. All the kids cheered, regardless of what side they were on and Lionel cheered too, jogging up a few steps with his arms up in a display of victory. A few of the kids gave him high fives which he responded to with enthusiasm before he and Sameen went on their way. The portly man seemed more relaxed after that and even started to enjoy the view.

"Never took you for a sports star Lionel." Sameen teased lightly as they climbed higher up the hill.

Lionel flashed her a grin, "Never underestimate the Fuscanator!" His smile died though as suddenly they came across the devastation that had been wrought upon the small community that morning. One minute the brightly-coloured houses were lining the street in a chaotic pushed together fashion with barely a narrow alleyway cutting through them at sporadic moments, the next, there were three blackened wrecks and then a gap where one house had collapsed completely, with more burned out buildings on the other side of it. Standing at the collapsed house, they were able to see over the blackened rubble and down into the steeply sloping side streets where yet more houses had been burnt out. Down below, the lights were starting to come on in the tower blocks and bigger houses, as the last of the light disappeared for the evening. Up where they were though, darkness remained. It looked like the power had gone out for the whole neighbourhood during the fire and had yet to be restored. A few flickering candles started to appear in windows but they did little to fight back the darkness.

"Wow! When Captain America does destruction, he really does destruction." Lionel murmured. He turned to looks at Sameen, she could feel his eyes boring into her and it was making her uncomfortable.

"What?"

"You're jealous, aren't you? That your Mayhem Twin got to commit mayhem without you."

"No." she replied indignantly. John himself would be horrified at the conversation. He would likely be feeling guilty at the carnage, but she, well that was a different story. She didn't do horrified, she didn't do guilt much either, and whatever had happened that morning looked like it had been a lot of fun. Who knew what the reason for the fire was, perhaps he'd taken out a cartel and they were looking at the smouldering remains of a drugs factory. Who knew with John Reese just what he'd wind up involved in? But she looked down at her feet and noticed amongst the ashes the remnants of a half-burned rag doll and she knew that hadn't been the case.

"Hey, what are you doin' here?" A heavily accented voice interrupted. Sameen looked up to see a group of young men in approach. The one who had spoken to them was in a pair of low slung jeans that showed off his boxers and had a red bandanna on his head. His body was skinny, yet still showed well-defined muscle, covered in tattoos. "You tourists want to come here and stare at our pain? This is tourism to you?" he asked angrily.

Sameen was about to open her mouth to reply, admittedly something equally as angry, when Lionel interrupted. "Hey kid," he held his hands up in a gesture of surrender, "we saw the news, what happened here is horrible. But we're looking for some friends. We think they were here this morning and might be hurt. We don't want no trouble."

Sameen was about to tell Lionel to shut up, after all, telling a group of young gangsters that their friends were responsible for so much damage to the community, was usually a bad plan. But he's clearly seen something in the young man that she'd missed, because rather than just shoot them, he gave them a nod. "Vamos," he said, and started to lead a path through the rubble.

"Hey buddy, no offence. But where are we going?"

"You come meet someone," he replied. "He knows your friend."

Sameen and Lionel exchanged looks, both knowing it was a bad idea, but not having any further leads. As they moved off to follow the man, she fingered the flick knife in her pocket and hoped she wouldn't have to use it.  
***

John allowed his head to roll back as he dozed in the uncomfortable metal chair. His back hurt and ass had gone numb from being sat in the same position for too long, but his hands were cuffed in such a way that he was unable to move enough to shift his weight. His face was swelling from the abuse it had taken and he guessed right now that he looked a mess. Not that his personal appearance had ever really meant that much to him, but every time Harold glanced in his direction, he could see a flash of worry on the older man's face. John wished he'd worry a little less about him and a little more about what he was being forced to do. It appeared that the more the eccentric programmer got drawn into his work, the more he got wrapped up in his enjoyment of problem solving and the less he remembered what would happen if he actually completed his task. John knew he had to find a solution to their predicament before that happened, but so far, no opportunities had been forthcoming.

His mind drifted back to early that morning. The sound of Harold's heavy, panicked breathing in his ear as he dragged him through the narrow streets, the nagging pain in his side from the bullet graze and the protesting of his bruised muscles. The heat from the fire and the sounds of automatic gunfire had been reminiscent of Iraq. He'd been able to block it all out and focus on the task at hand, until he'd watched a bullet tear through that young boy who carried his name and the air was cut through with a mother's cries.

He jerked in his seat. He hadn't even been aware that he'd drifted to sleep until he'd been so vividly brought back to that horrible memory. He opened his eyes to find Harold peering at him wearily through the scratched lenses of his glasses. He attempted to give him a reassuring smile but only had the energy to quirk one side of his mouth up. Hardly reassuring, but it seemed to be enough to get the programmer back to his work. John went back to fantasising about burning this whole warehouse to the ground.  
***

Lionel felt the hairs on the back of his neck standing up as he followed through the maze of houses in the oppressive dark. He'd done a lot of stupid things since meeting the Professor and his deadly pet assassins, (a few stupid things before then, too), but this had to take the cake. He was glad Sameen had bought the knives, and he had his gripped in the palm of his hand now, but he still was very sure it wouldn't be enough to enter wherever they were being lead. The entourage they seemed to have, unnerved him. They were talking just behind him in hushed voices, but his Spanish was limited to things he'd picked up from movies and the curse words that his Puerto Rican training officer had been partial to, so he had no idea what they were saying. He did keep hearing mention of 'El alto gringo' though, which he assumed meant they were talking about John.

Eventually, the small group came to a halt in front of a house with bars on the windows and door. There were the sounds of loud laughing and talking and someone playing a guitar. The kid in front knocked and then yelled something to the people inside. The noises carried on, clearly unwilling to have their party interrupted, but someone came to the door anyway. It was hard to see who had answered, in the dark, but there was a brief whispered conversation and then the door opened.

They were lead into the small, candlelit room and silence fell upon them as everybody there stared at the newcomers. Lionel hung back in the doorway before someone shoved him through it none too gently and he ended up in the middle of what was clearly a drug dealer's house party. There were about ten people inside, mostly young males, but a few young women too. They were all tattooed, some more heavily than others, but Lionel was starting to see a theme, they all had a tattoo of what he guessed was a jaguar on them, denoting them as members of the same gang. They were all sat around on dilapidated sofas and chairs, except for the girl who was knelt at the glass coffee table in the centre of the room cutting up coke into lines.  
The man in the centre of all this, was older than the others, about forty, mixed race, and probably spent what Lionel would consider way too long pumping iron. He sneered at the newcomers, showing off a mouth full of gold teeth, and slid his hand round the waist of the girl he had sat on his lap. "¿Rico, que es esto?" [Rico, what is this?]

"Amigos del soldado de Carmella." [Friends of Carmella's soldier.]

The man slid the girl off his lap and she stood up and made for the stairs in the corner of the room. The other girl who had been cutting the cocaine also stood, casually dusted the stray coke dust off her bare thighs and joined her. The leader waited until the girls were out of the way upstairs before he shifted his hand behind his back and pulled out a .50 cal Desert Eagle handgun. He rested it casually on the arm of the chair, his hand still placed loosely on top.

"Your friend got a pass because I owed him, and look what happened." He waved his hand with the gun in it around to indicate the general devastation they found themselves in. "Worse than this, my nephew got shot. Now, why shouldn't I just shoot the two of you to even the score, eh?"

The expression on Sameen's face looked like she was daring him to do just that when she said, "Because I don't think our friend shot your nephew. I think the people who took him did, and if you can tell us where to find them I promise you I will kill every last one of them."

The man grinned and then that grin turned into a cackling laugh. "What are you and this pig gonna do huh?"

"Hey!" Lionel said indignantly.

"What? You think you don't look like a cop? I could smell bacon on you from the street, pendejo." [asshole/stupid/coward]

But Sameen reacted in a different way, she reached out and grabbed Rico beside her, twisting his arm up and flipping him across her back. As she did, she moved in to disarm him and a second later, the teenager crashed spread-eagled across the coffee table with Sameen holding his own gun in his face. The older gangster paused a moment as he processed what had just happened and then his laugh got even louder and he began a slow clap.

"Okay Niñita Ninja, what do you need?" [Little girl ninja.]


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19

There was something comforting about the cold metal of a 9mm concealed in the small of your back, especially when you knew you were about to trade one dangerous situation for another. It turned out allowing themselves to be brought to the house of Alejandro 'El Pistolero' Arbeláez, had been a bold but fortunate move. After Sameen's understated but effective show of strength, the gangster had been more than happy to discuss the situation, and once Sameen explained that they had the cash to pay for the things they needed, then the man wasted no time before getting on the phone to the various people they needed to make it happen. He even offered them both a line of coke while they waited, which, of course they declined, although Sameen was quite happy to down a few rum and cokes instead.

Lionel was never one to look a gift-horse in the mouth, but the whole thing had felt too easy. Which is why he was sure the next part of this plan was about to go horribly wrong. Once Sameen had mentioned, somewhat cryptically, that the terrorist group, New Dawn had been involved, Arbeláez had managed to come up with the name of someone to talk to. Getting everything else they'd needed had taken most of night, so they'd gone back to the hotel, caught four hours of sleep and a quick breakfast before setting out on this next step of the mission.  
They were stood outside a church waiting for the congregation to come out. They each had a printout of a photograph in their hand from an old newspaper article. That and a promise that the man they were looking for would be there, it wasn't much, but they'd done more with less. As the church doors opened, mass finished, Sameen and Lionel separated so they could maximise their surveillance. As the churchgoers began to pour out, they began to scan through the crowd.

Lionel was getting rather frustrated with the task. It was a big church and he was starting to think that it was going to be impossible to find the man they wanted from a blurry old photo. But after hours spent searching through mug shots or camera footage looking for perps, along with a couple of tailing lessons from The Bane of his Existence, and he'd learned a knack for picking people out of a crowd. The trick was to identify the things that made them stand out from others, the shape of the nose or hairline, or the way they carried themselves. Eventually, he thought he had his man. He was shorter than he appeared from the photograph, and he'd grown a scraggly beard since it had been taken but after a closer look, Lionel was sure the man flirting casually with a younger woman was the one they were looking for. He had a thin scar running through his eyebrow and his nose had been broken at least twice.

Lionel strode into the crowd and slung his arm casually across the shoulders of their mark, like he might with an old friend. The man turned to him to protest but froze when he felt the muzzle of Lionel's handgun pressed into his side. "Hola." Lionel grinned politely, flashing the woman an awkward smile. "Excuse us, we need to talk."

The flustered man muttered his apologies to the woman, as Lionel steered him back into the church. As they went against the flow of the throng of people, he sensed more than saw, Sameen fall into position behind him. By the time they got back into the church, it was all but empty. It had been a while since Lionel had found time to go to church, but he always felt a sense of wonder when he stepped into one. This one in particular was rather grand, with large paintings and lots of gold. He would have liked to take a closer look, but he had to concentrate on the task at hand. He manoeuvred the man into a wooden pew and sat beside him, making sure the 9mm was still jammed into his side. Sameen came and sat on the other side, sandwiching the man between them.

Down at the end of the church, a couple of alter boys tidied up the remnants of communion. All three of them sat in silence until the boys had gone through a side door and they were alone. "Simón Montero?" Lionel asked in a whisper. "¿Inglés?" [English?]

"Who are you? What do you want?" Montero asked.

"We met one of your friends in New York recently." Sameen said. "It was an interesting conversation and it didn't end well for him."

Montero glared at them both.

Lionel rolled his eyes at Sameen. She was great at intimidation, but they really didn't have time for the posturing that was likely to follow. "Look pal, your friend Eduardo was pretty adamant that your government is up to some sneaky shit and he seemed to think that if they ever got hold of our friends then it would be very bad for all concerned."

"Your friend is dead." Montero snarled. "Go look at the bottom of the ocean."

Lionel shook his head. "Nope. Try again. What do you think all that nonsense was about yesterday? The government has our friends and considering the effort they put into getting them, I doubt they're being treated to coffee and cake at the embassy."

Montero looked genuinely concerned at the information. "The government is trying to create a surveillance state. They want your friend Finch to create a program that can watch everyone all the time. They want to destroy our privacy, our right to live independently. It will be the end of free speech, free thought and this government will be able to do whatever they want without reprisals."

Lionel frowned. He'd always taken the usual cop stance of 'why care if you've nothing to hide', but he could see that not all governments were the same. "Hey pal, you don't need to give us the campaign speech. We don't want them building whatever it is either. Help us find them, and we'll help you stop them."

Montero looked at them both, Lionel could almost see his thought processes written on his face. Eventually he said, "Come with me."  
***

"I'm telling you, you can't do it that way." Harold paused, his fingers hovering over the keyboard while he sighed exasperatedly. It was late afternoon on the second day of their capture, and so far, apart from a couple of bathroom breaks, he'd forged on with this programming. Harold was used to it, in the early days, he'd often worked for days straight, fuelled by nothing more than his eager excitement for solving a problem. He'd lost count of the number of times Nathan had arrived with some sort of cooked meal and then forced him to go home and sleep. Now though, there was no excitement keeping him going, only dread. His body ached and his eyes burned from staring at the screen for too long.

"I think you're forgetting who is in charge here." The man in the shirt said coldly. "We need this done quickly, it's almost operational so it shouldn't take as long as you're saying."

"You brought me here to fix this. And I'm telling you that you need to teach this thing some parameters. If you don't teach it right from wrong, then it will evolve without knowing any boundaries. What if you tell your program that you want it to stop violent people. But without parameters, how does it differentiate? How does it separate a gang member from a soldier or a police officer? What if it decides you're violent? And what if it decides that the best way of stopping violent people is to kill anyone who might have a propensity for violence? You need to know the consequences that this creation will have."

"You're stalling." The government agent said. "You've seen the dangers of our country. Our murder rate is the highest it's been and it's getting worse. I know you think that your country is the only one who deserves such a program, but we are trying to save lives." He was quite emphatic, and for just a moment, despite his having kidnapped them, Harold felt sorry for him. He seemed to be a desperate man who really believed he was trying to do the right thing. "My son was killed," he revealed. "He was a good boy, did well at school, was going to go to university and wanted to become a lawyer. But he was carjacked and the robbers shot him. No one ever caught the people who did it. If we had this program we could have caught the people responsible, we may even have been able to stop them before they killed my son."

Harold looked over at John. He's seen the man flinch when their captor had mentioned his son. Harold knew he was still thinking about Juan. But the ex-operative locked eyes with Harold. It didn't really matter what kind of sob story the man gave, they could not give in. Or rather, he could not give in, it was all on him now.

"I cannot complete this without a huge amount more work," he reiterated.

"If saving the lives of my countrymen is not enough incentive, then maybe saving the life of one is." The agent said coldly. And then he strode over to one of the soldiers guarding them and pulled the handgun out of the man's holster.

"Oh God no!" Harold protested but far too late. The shot echoed loud in the room and this time John couldn't help but cry out. Harold realised he had closed his eyes in an attempt to avoid the horror of the situation and if it hadn't been for the sounds of John's laboured breathing as he tried to get the pain under control, then Harold might have been too scared to ever open them again.

When he did, he felt the blood drain from his face. John was still sat, cuffed to the chair, although he was even more slouched in it than before. He had his eyes tightly closed and was cycling through a breathing technique that Harold had seen him use before when he was in severe pain. There was a blood on the floor and a huge ragged hole where his knee used to be. Just looking at it made him feel sick, why did John have to be wearing shorts? He could see raw muscle and bone, the skin ragged where it had been cruelly torn through. His put his trembling hand over his mouth and stood up to go to over to him. "John?"

"Sit back down!" the agent snapped and Harold panicked and sat, too scared not to comply.

"I'm okay Harold." John said through gritted teeth, although it clearly wasn't true.

But Harold was furious, "How dare you lecture me on saving lives, when you're so willing to take them. I may have, in some way, brought this upon myself, but John's a good man. He doesn't deserve such cruelty."

"A man who has killed seven of my men. I think he would be the first to argue that the end justifies the means." He stood beside John, looking down at him. The ex-operative's head was hanging limply, but he raised it up and gave Harold a pleading look with pain-glazed eyes. At the unspoken command from John, Harold settled back into his seat and turned his attention back to the screen.

"Good," the agent said calmly, "now that you remember who is in control here, get back to work before I decide I have to remind you again."  
***

Sameen was starting to get restless, again. It was now nine days since Harold and John had first been taken from New York, and about thirty-six hours since they'd last been seen in the slum. The boy she'd humiliated at Arbeláez's place, Rico, had been the only one they'd found who'd seen them. Lionel had interrogated him on what they'd looked like but it was difficult to tell from the description just what condition they were in; Harold limped at the best of times and John was too good at pretending he was fine. Rico had mentioned a bloody wound at John's hip, it hadn't appeared to have been hampering him much, but then it wasn't that long ago that the man had suffered potentially fatal wounds and then gone on a city-wide rampage to avenge Carter's death. Sameen didn't do worried, per se, she didn't have the emotional depth for it, but she was definitely restless, and wouldn't be satisfied until she had her 'boys' home safe.

Her restlessness was making her want to bash some heads together. It was only Lionel at her side that had prevented her from doing so thus far. And now she was about to walk into a nest of terrorists and had to play nice with them. She'd read the reports when he'd first found out that they were connected. These people had been responsible for blackmail, kidnap and murder. They were the kinds of people she'd spent her career with ISA hunting down. If this didn't go according to plan, she hoped the detective would know well enough to stay out of her way as she dealt with them.

Montero, after a number of phone calls, had promised to take them to the Caracas headquarters of their cell. Shortly after, a van had turned up and Lionel and Sameen had been made to get in it. There had been no way to see where they were going, but it was better than being blindfolded, so the two Americans had kept the grumbling to themselves and allowed it to happen. The journey took about twenty minutes, after some time on the main thoroughfare through the city, they'd switched to smaller roads and appeared to be climbing uphill.

Eventually the truck came to a stop and there was some shouting and the sound of a creaky old gate being opened before they drove through and they could hear the gate close behind them. When the truck came to a final stop, the back doors of the truck were thrown open and bright afternoon light flooded into the darkened space. Sameen stood up and brushed the dust off her jeans, helped haul Lionel to his feet and then jumped out of the vehicle.

They'd been driven into a barn, still full of farm equipment, although most of it looked rusted and unused. Montero had been the one to throw open the doors and he eyed them suspiciously as they took in their surroundings. "Come," he said. "We go to the house."

Sameen and Lionel followed as they were lead out of the barn to an aging farmhouse. It had been built with stone and looked like it had been there a century or more. Terracotta tiles had slid off the roof and one half of it looked like it was being held up by whatever kind of plant it was crawling all over it. The land itself seemed arid and unlikely to yield much, although it did afford great views of the mountains thick with forest beyond it's boarders. It was a good place to hide, Sameen assessed, how many other little homesteads were tucked away in the hills, there for so long that no one paid them any attention anymore.

They walked up the steps and through the front door to the house to find a large kitchen area. There was a dining table big enough to seat eight people and this seemed to be their main base of operations. There were three large computer set-ups with multi-screens on the table, two men and a woman manning them, with another couple, male and female making coffee in the kitchen. Everybody turned to stare at the newcomers as they entered. Sameen could feel Lionel shuffle uncomfortably beside her.

The silence was broken when Lionel scoffed, "Why are you people always so hypocritical?"

"What do you mean?" one of the women growled.

"I mean, you guys think technological surveillance is the route of all evil and yet you have a spy set up that the CIA would be proud of."

"We are in a war where the other side don't play by the rules. We've got to…"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've heard all this crap before." Sameen cut in as she strode into the room and had a glance at the nearest computer system. "You can have your war if you help us find our friends."

"Why do we need you at all? We could just find them and go ourselves." The woman seemed really angry that they were there. Looking round the other faces in the room, there hade clearly been a heated debate about whether or not to allow them there, and the decision had not been unanimous.

"I reckon you need us, because despite all this talk about war, I reckon I'm the only one here who has actually been in a real one."

"What do you have so far?" Lionel asked, ever the mediator. He picked up a few of the printouts that had been displayed haphazardly across the table and scanned through them.

One of the men took over, it was clear they would be getting no help from the angry woman. "We're looking at the city camera system for the vehicle that took them, but there is not much coverage."

"Can I?" Sameen asked, indicating the chair he was sat in.

The young man got up and gestured for her to take his seat. Sameen settled in and started looking through the many windows that he had on his display, each showing camera footage from a different part of the city. Beside her on the table was a map he had been marking off with pencil as he went through each one.

She felt Lionel lean on the back of her chair, "you know what you're doing here, Black Widow? Didn't think you and Captain America did much tech stuff."

Sameen smiled at the new nickname, she wasn't really much of a movie goer, couldn't feel the empathy for the characters that was required, but she didn't mind the suggestion that she was an Avenger. "Finch taught me a thing or two," she replied. "And not all my last job involved bullets and hand grenades."

But sat at the computer, she did wonder why she'd thought she'd be better than the guy whose seat she'd just commandeered. She started clicking through the footage and watching it sped up, scanning through multiple scenes at once for any information she needed.

"I've done that already," the man muttered indignantly.

But then something weird happened. As Sameen clicked the mouse on a video to enlarge it, a completely different screen popped up. On it was a still image of a police van, zoomed in so that the licence plate was visible. Then another screen popped up beside it with a satellite image of a small set of buildings obscured in the trees. There was nothing to suggest why the building had come up, it appeared to be in the middle of nowhere, but Sameen just knew that this was where they were being held. Suddenly, in the corner of the room an old printer came to life.

"What's that?" Lionel asked, as the man who had been sat at the computer before Sameen went to investigate. He picked up the printed sheets with a confused expression on his face before turning it to show the others.

"It's a set of directions." Sameen smiled, not happy of course, (she didn't do happy,) but satisfied. "That's where we'll find them."

"But how do you know?" the woman asked.

Lionel was giving her a narrow-eyed look, trying to put the pieces together. But he was the only one who had seen the screens to know the information had come out of nowhere, and he knew better than to say anything about it now. "I have this friend," she explained. "She's great with computers and will have been looking for them from the moment they went missing. Trust me, if she says this is the place, then this is the place."

The man who was still looking through the printouts had a copy of the satellite image in front of him. "This looks like it could be a government vehicle," he pointed, "and this large building here has got some kind of large scale cooling unit in it, possibly for a computer system."

Sameen shrugged, "if you don't want to come, that's fine. We'll go without you. But if you want to become heroic revolutionaries or whatever, then you should come with us and we'll take it down together."

The room erupted in an intense discussion as the conversation was translated for those who didn't speak English and their options were debated.  
"Stirring stuff." Lionel said sarcastically, "it's like listening to Churchill."

After a couple of minutes of heated debate, too fast for Sameen to understand, Montero turned to them and said, "We'll come with you."

"Excellent!" Sameen grinned, "now let me teach you how we're going to do this."


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20

John would have laughed at the irony if it hadn't hurt so much. Perhaps karma did exist after all, and had decided that he deserved to be trapped at the mercy of spies who were trying to justify his death as a means to an end. The fact that he'd been kneecapped was just proof of karma's sense of humour. He had lost track of the time now, although he was fairly sure they were into their second night at the computer facility. In all that time, Harold had barely been allowed a break, and for the past few hours, John had been bleeding slowly but steadily, draining what little energy he had left. He could see the programmer wilting under the sleep deprivation now, his head nodding as he fought sleep.

He had left it too late to do anything, he admonished himself. The time to escape would have been the previous day when they both had strength left. But he'd left it too long in the hope of an opportunity and now neither of them were in a state to fight or run. His fingers had found a bolt on the back of the chair and had tried to twist that loose in an attempt to get the chair apart but had just wound up bloodying his finger and thumb. He'd thought about dislocating a thumb to try to slide the cuffs off, but they'd been placed on so tight that he would have had to break his whole hand for it to work and once he'd been caught trying, a guard had been placed at his back to watch his hands at all times.

The agent in charge had been in and out all day, clearly having managed to get a few hours sleep at some point which was more than could be said for the two of them. That had meant little to their escape though as a steady rotation of guards had been left to keep an eye on them. Apparently even with a shattered kneecap they didn't quite trust him. There was always six men on duty at any time plus a programmer, with more, he assumed outside. In fact, he'd tried to keep track of them as they rotated duties, he thought there were at least twenty of them. He'd survived bad odds before, but at some point it was best to accept your fate. His focus now had to be to destroy the computer, and perhaps if he was lucky he could cause enough of a distraction that Harold might be able to make a run for it.

The agent had left them hours ago, once he was satisfied that Harold was back hard at work. He was back now, surprisingly with a pair of chipped and faded mugs. He held onto one and set the other down on the floor beside John and the smell of strong coffee wafted up and made John's stomach grumble with hunger.

"Señor Finch," he greeted.

Harold jerked his head from where he was about to doze off again and looked at the man blearily.

"You look like you need some coffee," he gestured to the tray. "Come and sit. See to your friend for five minutes." He produced a bottle of water from his pocket and set it beside the mug.

John frowned at the man, he was being too nice all of a sudden. But then John supposed that even he saw that Harold couldn't be pushed much further without a break. However what seemed like a nice gesture was tempered by the fact that, when he crouched to place the coffee down, John caught sight of the gun he'd 'borrowed' from the soldier, tucked into his belt.  
Harold stood up, took his glasses off briefly and pinched his nose before replacing them and shuffling over to John. He knelt awkwardly beside John's chair and picked up the coffee.

"How are you holding up?" Harold asked quietly, but not so quietly that their audience could accuse them of conspiring.

John tried for a smile, although he failed, "I've been worse," he croaked, his throat was dry and raspy. He'd lost a considerable amount of blood and it had made him dehydrated and dizzy.

Harold put the steaming mug of coffee to John's lips and tipped it back slowly so John could take a sip. The coffee was thick and black and full of sugar, just the way he liked it. Kara had always teased him that you could power cars on the stuff and that believing it was drinkable was a sure sign that the army had brainwashed him. But this had a slight chemical aftertaste, barely noticeable unless you were used to drinking coffee this way. He ran his tongue over his lips trying to discern whether the mug had just been badly washed up or whether it was something more.

"The coffee is for you, it will wake you up," the agent pointed out to Harold, "just give him water." And then John realised what the taste was, the coffee had been laced with cocaine to keep him awake and able to work. Harold took a sip of the coffee and grimaced at the strong flavour, but apparently didn't notice there was anything amiss with it. John almost told him, but then he realised that perhaps he could use it to his advantage, perhaps the drug could give Harold the boost he needed to escape. At the very least it would take some of the pain out of his aching back and leg, and who was John to deny him that. Depending on how much he'd been given, he was likely to have one hell of a hangover once it wore off, but right at that moment, the possibility of a future was looking unlikely anyway.

Harold helped John take a sip from his water bottle and the ex-agent drank gratefully, although his broken knee was causing nausea to visit him in waves and he had to fight to keep it down.  
"Well, I seem to have gotten you into another sorry mess." Harold lamented. "I should have let you go in Rome after all."

John shook his head. "I was right to come back. I may not have made a damned difference doing so, but she would have wanted me to try."

"You made a difference to me John. You've made a difference to a lot of people."

"And yet everything still seems to end in blood." He knew how morose and bitter he sounded, these were the thoughts he usually kept to himself, but in that moment it was so hard to see beyond the failures of the last few days.

"Juan's death is not on you." Harold said passionately, "don't you take responsibility for what these bastards have done."

The uncharacteristic swear word from the man, was enough to get John to actually look at him, but he couldn't find the words to respond.

Harold looked at him awkwardly, "What he said earlier…" he started, looking for the right words. "About Juan being yours…"

John realised what the awkward man was trying to say and found it so incredulous that he laughed bitterly. "Really? She was running for her life after I put it in danger. Our relationship was strictly professional."

Harold let out a sigh of relief.

"Do you really think so little of me Harold?" John asked.

He removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose again. John wondered if the cocaine was starting to take effect yet. "I should have known better. I guess the last few days have been getting to both of us." He gave John a long look, "For the record, I would not have thought any less of you."

"This is all very touching," the agent then interrupts. "But it's time to get back to work."

Harold nodded in acquiesce and clambered awkwardly to his feet. John watched him carefully and noticed that the man did seem a little more alert than before, apparently the drug was starting to work its magic. But John noticed with some alarm the way the agent started to pace back and forth as he sipped his own coffee. The agent had always been rather still before, except this time he appeared agitated. John suspected that the man had put some cocaine in his own coffee too and it was likely to make the man unpredictable.

Once Harold was back at the computer, he went back to typing at a somewhat frantic pace, muttering something in what John had long ago dubbed 'geek speak'. He didn't understand much of it, but knew enough to know the man was far from giving away any secrets. It was the agent that concerned him, who appeared to have taken quite a bit more of the drug. A phone beeped with an incoming text message, and the agent fished one out of his pocket. Whatever was on the message was clearly not good news and the agent's pacing started to increase in speed. John found himself willing the man to keep the gun tucked safely in his waistband.

"How much longer?" the man snarled suddenly. John was almost certain that someone higher up was putting pressure on the agent to get the job done quickly.

"If you want this done right, at least another year." Harold snapped back.

Suddenly it was very clear to John that this was a disaster waiting to happen. "Just concentrate Finch," he used his most soothing tone, to try and calm the two agitated men. "Don't worry about what he's asking, just do the best you can." He turned to the agent, "he's trying," he pointed out.

"Yeah, well he's not trying hard enough." the agent growled. And then the man pulled the gun from the small of his back and aimed it at John's head. "I think maybe he needs a little more encouragement."

John rolled his eyes at being held at gunpoint again. Who put this idiot in charge? he wondered.

"Okay, okay." Harold said, typing almost inhumanly fast now. "I've nearly done. Just give me a couple of minutes."

"I'll give you one minute." he replied, and then started counting down, "sixty, fifty-nine, fifty-eight…"

Harold was starting to sweat under the pressure, coupled with the effect of the drugs. "Almost there, almost there, don't rush me, I'm almost there," he muttered as his fingers flew across the keys.

The agent was down to seven in his countdown when Harold slammed his finger down on the return key and exclaimed, "That's it! I've done it." The agent lowered his gun and went to stand next to Harold so he could see. All three of them stared at the screen in anticipation as it appeared to take on a life of it's own, cycling through the complex code that Harold had written, and then suddenly the screen went blank.

"What happened?" the agent asked. He seemed to be waiting for it to start back up again but nothing happened.

"I'm sorry John." Harold said quietly, meeting his gaze. His eyes were full of regret. "I couldn't let them have it."

John breathed a sigh of relief as he realised what the older man was saying.

"I wish I'd never made my machine, to make another, for someone who would use it so unscrupulously…" he sighed, "well I just couldn't. I'm afraid I may have condemned us both to death."  
"It's okay Harold." John replied, and he truly meant it. He's known as soon as they'd arrived that there really were only two ways that this could have played out, and they would not have survived either of them. At least this way, their mistakes ended with them.

"What have you done?" The agent was enraged. He lifted the gun again, this time to Harold's head. John would have expected Harold to flinch, he hated guns so much and to have one in his face should have quite rightly terrified him. But Harold had his jaw set in fierce determination. John was proud of him, although it looked like there wouldn't be enough time to tell him so.  
Suddenly the moment was interrupted with a deafening bang, that shook the whole building. It was followed almost immediately by the sound of shouting and automatic gunfire.

"¿Que es eso?" the agent barked at the guards. [What is that?]

Before anyone could go to investigate, the door burst open and a volley of fire cut through the agent, ripping through his neck until it took his head almost clean off. The agent collapsed back and crashed against the computer table on his way to the floor, dead before he hit the ground. Harold let out a cry of dismay at being splattered in the man's blood, and he and John turned their attention to the small woman dressed in black and toting a huge assault rifle as she came storming through the door.


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21

Lionel lay on his stomach in the scattered bushes that lay beyond the tree line, gripping the bump-stock fitted AR15 he'd been equipped with, and feeling like he was an expendable extra in The Thin Red Line. Beside him, Sameen was hunkered down, similarly armed and with the black backpack containing her first aid kit, cash and passports firmly strapped to her back. She'd put a long-sleeved shirt on over her vest, still black of course, and had rubbed mud across any remaining exposed skin. As a result, he could barely see her in the dark, even though she was about three feet away. She'd even made them both crawl to get there, almost from the moment they'd cut through the perimeter fence a couple of miles back. There, was a vantage point in the trees on the edge of the secret base, which they'd found exactly where Sameen's mystery directions had said it would be.

He had to admit he'd been doubtful, when she'd concocted the plan, that the small group of Che Guevara wannabes would last five minutes, but then they'd watched as two of them had dashed out of the treeline, dumped a propane tank down by the nearest jeep in the small motor pool before disappearing back into the forest. All it had taken then was a precise shot from Sameen's AR15 and the tank had exploded, taking the two nearest vehicles with it. It was enough to make Lionel's ears ring.

The explosion had caused confusion in the camp, as soldiers rushed to investigate. As they did, gunfire erupted from the trees on the other side of the camp, the members of New Dawn making their presence felt. Sameen hissed, "Go!" and leapt to her feet, using the chaos caused to sprint across the open space to the largest building in the compound. Cursing under his breath, he hauled himself up and followed as quickly as he could.

Sameen had suggested that they may try to eliminate John, if not Harold as well, at the first sign of trouble. So she had wasted no time in kicking the door open to the building that they had deemed would house the computer and therefore presumably their lost programmer. She'd gone in firing, and Lionel had to admit he was still a little in awe of watching her work. She and John always felt larger than life, and he always felt his own heroic effort paled in significance to them.

He was right beside her, as she used the wall to the right of the door as cover, he used the left. As he peered around it, he barely had enough time to take in the computer, their missing friends and the sheer number of paramilitaries, before Sameen fired. The fact that a man in a shirt had been holding a gun to Harold's head had only just registered with him by the time he fell to the ground, almost decapitated by bullets. Great shot, he conceded but the small assassin had stepped away from her cover to take it and now half a dozen men were shouldering their weapons and firing back. Sameen was so angry she barely seemed to care, spraying short bursts of bullets at the nearest one but leaving herself exposed. Lionel reached out and grabbed her shoulder pulling her back in behind him, and as he did he felt the sharp agony of a bullet tearing through his forearm.

He could tell Sameen was furious at his attempt to save her, but there was no time to argue it. But she did take more caution for her next shots. "Three on the left." she called, taking back control of the situation after her momentary lapse.

"Always gotta have the last say." Lionel muttered, but did as he was told, and together they tried to take out the men in the room, who had all dived for their own cover in amongst the large processing units. Bullets were flying back and forth, leaving Harold and John exposed between them. Harold had ducked down and was frantically searching through the pockets of the dead agent, but John was unmoving in the chair and looked to be in a bad way.

"We've gotta get them outta here, cover me." Lionel said, and then before she could protest, he raced out towards his friends.

He kept low and tried to ignore everything else that was going on around them. Sameen was doing a good job of drawing fire and picking the soldiers off, he trusted her to have his back. He got to John first, and balked at the bloodied and torn mess that his knee was in, noting how drained he looked under his recently acquired tan. Harold looked pale too, and bruised, and his hands were shaking as he went through the pockets of the dead man, but at least he looked like he could move. The programmer exclaimed in triumph and pulled out the handcuff key from a pocket. He dashed over to John and tried to fit the tiny key into the lock but his hands were trembling too much. Lionel placed his hand over the key and took it from him.

"Stay low, get to Shaw. I've got Wonderboy," he ordered. Harold gave him a look of trepidation and reluctance to leave his friend, but perhaps sensing his help would be more of a hindrance, he did as he was told and took of in a limping run towards the door and the small ex-operative that guarded it.

Getting Harold safe, Lionel could concentrate on John. "How you doin' partner?" he asked as he unlocked the handcuffs, releasing the other man from the chair.

As John felt his hands release he looked up at him with a glazed expression. "Get out of here," he rasped painfully. "Protect Finch."

Lionel shook his head as he grabbed John's arm and slung it over his shoulder, tucking the taller man into his side for greater control. "As much as I've thought about kneecapping you and leaving you for dead myself, that ain't gonna happen."

John let out a strangled scream as Lionel lifted him to his feet, the movement jostling his shredded knee. There was no way he would be able to put any weight on it, aside from the pain, the mechanics of it were no longer there, tendons and ligaments had been torn into pieces. All they could hope for was that John could lean most of his weight on the detective and let his damaged leg drag along behind them.

John was gripping Lionel's shoulder tightly, but as soon as they started to move, he slumped into him and his hold slipped. Lionel panicked that even that slight shift had made John pass out from the pain, but as he looked to his friend, he could see him, still there, trying desperately to get his body under control enough to move. The bullets were still flying, this was no time to be gentle, so Lionel adjusted his grip so that even unconscious the other man wouldn't fall, and then he forged on.

By the time he'd made the mad dash to the door, Lionel was breathing heavy and John was barely hanging on. He pulled them both through the door, to where Sameen had held their position. Harold was beside her, his body pressed flat against the wall as though it was the only thing holding him upright. Outside, the sounds of shouting and gunfire were just beyond a few of the smaller buildings, the New Dawn terrorists engaging the paramilitaries in a firefight and drawing attention away from their escape. When Sameen had outlined the plan, there had been some backlash about it, with a few of the terrorists wanting to aim straight for the computer. But she had insisted that the key thing was to take out as many men as possible while they still had the element of surprise and in the end they'd relented. In reality, Sameen had confided in Lionel that she didn't give a damn about the terrorists and they were only there to serve as a distraction while they escaped with Harold and John.

Sameen took one look at John, still clutched close to Lionel and said, "We need a vehicle. You three are going to head to our original position, and I'll get us one." Lionel nodded but Harold shook his head.

"I'm coming with you," he said with more firmness than he looked capable of at that moment.

"Finch, I…" Sameen began to protest.

"You shoot, I'll drive," he said.

Sameen shook her head in defeat. "Okay. Fusco, I'll cover you while you get to the tree line, go!"

Lionel summoned all his energy and took off, dragging poor John with him. They kept the momentum going by sheer will alone until they got to the trees and John stumbled and they crashed together to the floor.

They fell hard enough to knock the wind out of them, with John landing half on top of the detective. John appeared to have lost a little weight throughout his recent ordeal, but he still was not a small man by any stretch of the imagination, and Lionel had to struggle to extricate himself without jostling his wounded friend too much. John groaned as he moved, but ever so quietly so he didn't give their position away. When he turned his head to look at Lionel, it was clear that he'd bitten through his own lip to stop himself from crying out when they'd fallen. Lionel looked at him, quite frankly amazed at his level of control. But he was tired of running around this compound playing soldier, and couldn't imagine what had possessed the man next to him (or anyone else for that matter) to chose to make a career of it.

"You good?" he whispered, as he shuffled back into the position that he'd started this crazy venture in, on his belly, facing the compound with the AR15 settled into his shoulder, finger just brushing the trigger guard, ready to fire.

He should have known better than to expect John to just lay there and allow himself to be rescued, and after a couple of grunts and some extraordinary effort, John had also shuffled into a similar position. He nodded a silent, yes, to Lionel's question and then his eyes fell upon Lionel's forearm, raising an eyebrow and looking to Lionel for an answer of his own.  
Lionel too glanced down at his forearm and the hole that had been left in it. The adrenaline had been rushing on their mad escape and although he'd been aware of the pain, there had been so much else to concentrate on that it had been pushed to the periphery. Thankfully, he still seemed able to use it, so he was hopeful that not too much damage had been done. That was the good thing about carrying a little extra weight, he supposed, there was always a little more flesh to protect the important stuff. He nodded back, in imitation of John.

"Good." John whispered. "Now, do you happen to have a spare one of those?" he pointed at the rifle.

Lionel didn't, but he did have that 9mm, so he produced that instead. When he saw the look of disappointment on John's face, he unlooped the rifle strap from his head and handed it over, "There, I'm sick of this commando shit anyway."

John smiled, checking the rifle as it was handed to him, almost out of habit than anything else. Lionel tried not to be offended, despite the fact he knew it was fine, Sameen had done exactly the same thing when they'd bought the guns the night before, and again before they'd left the farmhouse. Seemingly satisfied with his inspection, John settled into the role of infantryman, awaiting Sameen and Harold, and prepared to challenge anyone who looked like the enemy.

Lionel glanced at him, he had a lot of questions, but knowing that now was not the time, he settled for one. "Did those bastards get what they wanted from you?"

John shook his head, never taking his eyes from where he was scanning the compound for paramilitaries. "No, Finch destroyed it. I wasn't sure he'd have the guts to, but he did."

"Good." Lionel still wasn't sure exactly what they'd been taken there to do, but that was a question for another time.  
***

"Impeccable timing as usual Miss Shaw." Harold whispered a little too loudly as they hid, flat to the wall of a building. Sameen looked at the older man and frowned. She knew most people were affected by adrenaline differently, and that having a gun pointed at your head was enough to make anyone without an Axis II personality jittery, but the man was a bundle of barely contained energy and if he didn't get it under control she might shoot him herself.

"Shh," she hissed. "Get it together Finch. You see that truck over there?" She pointed to an old Ford flatbed that had a pair of wooden bench seats in the back and a few sacks of miscellaneous crap in between them. "I'm going to cover you, while you run and hotwire it.

"Okay." he almost took off immediately, completely oblivious to the danger from a sniper on a nearby rooftop. Sameen had to grab him to hold him back.

"Wait! Go when I tell you." She was almost nervous at letting go of him, in case he bolted off again, but as she released his arm he waited for her, shifting nervously on the balls of his feet. She swapped out the mag on the rifle, aimed and took her shot at the head of the sniper she could just about see on the roof overlooking their route. She'd hit her mark and the head slumped back behind the lip of the flat roof. "Okay go!"

Harold ran, faster than she would have thought him capable of, in the direction of the truck, but she didn't have time to watch him. A door of a nearby building opened and three men appeared. They were about to take aim at Harold, when she fired a hail of bullets at them and they turned their attention to her, the more immediate threat. It occurred to her, as more soldiers came to their aid, that the rest of the compound had gone quiet. She wondered if the terrorists had all been killed already or whether they'd chosen to retreat. No matter, they'd served their purpose. Five more minutes would have been nice, but there was no time to dwell on it.

There was a fine line between drawing fire and just wasting bullets, and although they'd brought a couple of clips each with them, it had already taken a lot to lay down enough to get Lionel and John as far as she had. The paramilitaries on the other hand seemed to have an inexhaustible supply. She'd taken down four at the computer warehouse, another three here, and yet there seemed to be an inexhaustible supply of them. They were coming at her from multiple directions too. She sighed, another clip spent, and switched it out before continuing, hoping that this wasn't to be their Alamo.

Suddenly, there was a roar of an engine and the truck pulled up beside her, Harold at the wheel. She leapt onto the footboard and grabbed the roof bar, so that she could cling to the side of the vehicle and fire as he drove. "What took you so long?"

"We're not done yet." Harold said cryptically.

"We so are!" she argued. "We need to get the others and go."

But rather than head towards where the others were, Harold drove up and parked the truck at the door of the warehouse that the computer was stored in. "We have to finish this." he urged, "wait here."

Before she could protest, he grabbed a cigarette lighter off the seat beside him and climbed out of the cab. He grabbed a canister from the back of the truck and she helped him haul it off the back. As the liquid sloshed around inside, she knew what he planned to do. Another group of soldiers appeared and started running towards them, but then gunfire erupted from beyond the trees and she knew that John and Lionel had seen them and taken them out for her. Seeing Harold struggle into the warehouse with the heavy cannister, she chose to leave the guarding of the truck in their capable hands and help the software engineer instead. She grabbed the cannister and took it from him.

As she ran into the large room she tipped the cannister, leaving a thin trail of gasoline as she went. When she got to the computer she poured it liberally all over.

"The processors too." Harold pointed out, from where he'd stopped at the beginning of the gasoline trail. She did as she was told, not having enough to cover all of them, but enough to be certain the fire would spread. She finished by tossing the cannister and racing back to Harold, who held the button down on the lighter and then very carefully lit the gasoline, stepping back as it went up with a whoosh. The flame burned hot as it ran along the trail that Sameen had laid, but there was no time to watch the destruction. Sameen grabbed Harold's arm and rushed him back out to the truck.

Sameen hung onto the side again as Harold drove, slamming the breaks hard enough to get the tyres to screech as they arrived at the position where John and Lionel were hidden and holding off the last of the soldiers. Sameen leapt off and grabbed one of John's arms. Lionel grabbed the other, and together they hauled the man upright. With an arm over the shoulder of each of his friends, John was dragged to the back of the truck. Once there, he was able to grab on and haul himself into the back, with only a little help from Lionel who clambered in after him. Sameen clung to the side again and Harold put his foot to the floor.

The normally risk-averse programmer drove like a bat out of hell down the dirt path that lead out of the compound. Sameen was being bounced around so much that it was hard to cling on, let alone fire at anything, but as they neared a guard tower she took a shot and managed to get the man on duty there. There were more soldiers attempting to follow them, a few, it seemed, had dirt bikes, but Lionel and John seemed to be doing a good job of picking them off. Her much more pressing concern was that they were approaching a big heavy gate that had been closed with thick padlocks and chains, and that Harold appeared to have no intention of slowing down for. She grabbed the roof bars and used them to vault into the back of the truck, landing between John and Lionel who were sprawled in the centre. She managed to duck down behind the cab just in time as Harold put his foot to the floor and crashed through the gates, taking one half off its hinges and dragging it down the road a way, before it broke free from where it was snagged under their wheels.

"He's had cocaine, he shouldn't be driving." John commented, causing both Sameen and Lionel to stare at him.

Sameen was going to retort the ridiculous statement, and then remembered how distracted and jittery the software engineer had been and knew it to be true. "Looks to be doing alright to me."

They seemed to have lost their tail, enough for the three of them to breathe a sigh of relief, even though Harold appeared not to be slowing down any time soon. On unsteady legs, unsteady because of the jostling of the truck over uneven road and of course in no way to do with fear, Sameen hauled herself up so that she could stand in the back and look over the cab to their destination. She sighed in frustration, just a short distance up ahead, a van had been parked, blocking the road. Stood in front of it was Montero and two other members of New Dawn, including the woman who had not wanted to trust them in the first place. She was now holding her arm close to her side, a bleeding wound in her shoulder. They'd gone with seven of them. Sameen assumed these were all that had made it out.

With no way to get around them on the narrow road, Harold slowed to a stop in front of them.

"It's done." Sameen said from her position stood on the truck. Realising what was happening, Lionel quickly stood and joined her, aiming his handgun at Montero. "You wanted a war, you got one. Now you said that when this was done you'd let us go."

"We need him," the woman said, pointing at Harold behind the wheel. "He's a threat to the world, we can't allow him to leave."

"Hey!" Lionel said indignantly, "he was prepared to die to stop them. He destroyed the program and then set the whole thing on fire."

"The way I see it, that man is your goddamn messiah." Sameen said. "He did what your little rebellion failed to do. And you owe him. But all that aside, you've seen what we're capable of, pitting the four of us against the three of you, how many of you do you think would survive?"

She let that sink in for a moment, lifting her weapon, just in case she had to use it. But for once, words were enough and the cowed terrorists clambered into the van and drove it aside to let them pass. As Harold drove passed them at a suddenly sensible speed, she was taken with the urge to just shoot them anyway. After all, they were terrorists, they'd been involved in all sorts of crimes, and had been the ones plotting to kill Harold in the first place. But Lionel placed a hand on her shoulder and steadied her rage, shaking his head slowly, "we've done enough. Let's just get outta here."

She gave the detective a grim smile and then leaned over and tapped on the window to get Harold to stop. When he did she jumped down and opened the driver's door. "Shuffle over," she suggested. "I'll drive." Harold looked incredibly relieved and slid into the passenger seat allowing her to clamber in and set off again at a brisk pace that she hoped wouldn't jostle John too much in the back.

"I don't believe I had time to thank you Miss Shaw." Harold said, suddenly looking very weary.

Sameen smiled at him, about to reply, when she heard a familiar noise that interrupted her. It was the deep whump-whump-whump of an approaching helicopter. "Don't thank me yet. Boys!" she shouted, "incoming!"

She put her foot to the floor and they bumped along, everyone flying off their seats over the rough terrain.

"Spare clip?" John shouted from the back. Sameen didn't take her eyes off the road as she fished into a pocket for an extra mag and handed it out the window. She watched in the rear-view mirror as Lionel grabbed it and sat beside John who was checking his AR15 as he skidded about in the back.

Suddenly, the helicopter appeared in view over the trees. She could see it fast approaching in the side mirror, it was an old Black Hawk, likely a five or six man team with a minigun mounted on the side and they would be within range of them any second. She tilted the rear-view mirror to get a better look at John. He had pulled himself to a seated position with his back against the cab to steady himself, aiming the AR15 and waiting for it to get close enough. The problem was, they needed a sniper rifle, and they would be in range of the helicopter's minigun before John would have a shot.

Sameen kept driving, picking up speed and trying to avoid potholes while she watched what was happening behind her in her mirrors. A man appeared at the controls of the minigun, aimed it and rattled off a volley of fire. Bullets thudded into the ground in their wake, and the gunner was just in the process of adjusting the aim of his wieldy weapon when John took his shot. The first of John's shots could be heard pinging off the side of the Black Hawk, but he corrected his aim quickly and the next two found their mark. The gunner screamed as he was hit, slipped forward and fell out of the door of the helicopter.

There was barely enough time to breathe before someone else stepped up to the plate and took control of the minigun. Lionel yelped as the next assault actually hit the vehicle, tearing through the back of the truck mere inches from him and causing Sameen to fight to keep control of the steering. But John was steady as he squeezed the trigger. He sent them the rest of the clip, bullets downing the second gunner and tearing into the tail of the aircraft. The helicopter listed to the side as it took on damage and the pilot struggled to keep it straight. He ejected the spent clip, letting it fall between his legs and held out his hand. Dutifully, Lionel slapped the spare into John's hand and he drove it home until snapped into place. John ejected the spent cartridge and the next bullet entered the chamber. He fired again, aiming for the fuel tank and with the first bullet, punched through into the chassis. He finished with a couple of shots to the rudder and then it was no longer possible for the pilot to keep it steady. The nose dipped down towards the trees, the pilot frantically tried to pull up but a rotor-blade clipped the top of a tree and caused it to spin. The doomed helicopter crashed through the trees into the forest. The four occupants of the truck slumped in relief at their near miss, and Sameen drove onwards determined not to stop until they were truly safe.


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter 22

John drifted back to consciousness as he felt the truck pull off the road and park up. He'd been dozing in and out propped up against the back of the cab since the last of the adrenaline from their escape had drained from him. He opened his eyes to see Lionel perched on the bench seat. He was looking pale too, and he was cradling his wounded arm to protect it from the rough motion of the truck. They'd been travelling all night and now the sun was just starting to come up. They'd pulled off into the trees so they couldn't be seen from the road. The truck doors slammed and then Sameen clambered into the back looking tired. She had the backpack with her and she sat down beside John's knee and tore it open, eyeing the damaged kneecap critically. Harold also came to stand by the back of the truck. The cocaine had clearly worn off and he now seemed to be suffering a huge hangover. John thought he looked almost green, he was sporting a black eye and his hands were still trembling slightly. The whole sorry adventure had taken a huge toll on all of them.

"They've really done a number on you this time Reese," she commented, crouching down beside his knee. She donned some latex gloves, ripped open an antiseptic wipe and started to clean it. John hissed in pain and dug his fingers into his thigh to try to stop himself from flinching away. At the end of the truck Harold watched until the kneecap moved unnaturally, which made his turn even greener and then cling onto the side as he threw up what little he had left in his stomach.

"Hey, Finch," Sameen said when the man was finished, "you think you could take Fusco into the cab and wrap his arm for me?"

Fusco picked out antiseptic and bandages from the bag and clambered out. Sameen waited until the two of them were out of the way until she resumed her ministrations on John.

"Do I need to be worried about the blood on your shirt?" Sameen asked, concentrating on what she was doing.

"Just a graze." John spoke through big gulping breaths as he tried to control the pain. "It's been dressed. Might need a couple of stitches but it can wait."

"You know I can hardly stick a band aid on this, you're going to need a total knee replacement."

John nodded weakly, he'd had an army buddy who'd needed one after being hit by shrapnel from an IED. The surgery had been extensive and recovery had been long. Normally anything that had him benched would drive him crazy, but right now he couldn't seem to care.

"I'll wrap it, but we'll need to get you to a hospital. A real one, not one of Finch's dodgy doctors in a safe house."

John managed a ghost of a smile, "A dodgy doctor like you, you mean?"

"Exactly! The last thing you need post-op is someone like me bullying you. It's not really my forte." She got out a bandage and started to wrap it.

"You're doing okay." John said, watching the way she treated him with surprising tenderness. Just the slightest touch was absolute agony, but he could tell she was trying. "I know you're not really into the whole team work, leadership thing either, but you've done a good job with that too. Thanks for coming to get us."

She laughed, uncomfortable with the emotional tone of the conversation, "I'm sure you and Finch were seconds away from your own miraculous escape, but I got bored."  
John looked at her with a grim expression, unable to hide the fact that escaping had been taken off the cards before they arrived.

"How's Wonderboy doin'?" Lionel asked, appearing at the side of them again. Harold was with them and had an old route-map in his hands. Lionel now had his forearm tightly wrapped and was hanging across his chest in a sling.

"He'll live." Sameen answered for him.

"We've been looking at the map, we're not too far from the border." Harold said, looking a little better now that he had something to occupy himself. "But it looks like a long way to a town big enough for a clinic."

"We shouldn't stop so close." John said, through gritted teeth.

"John needs a specialist orthopaedic hospital." Sameen said, "How far is it to Bogota?"

"That's a long journey," Lionel pointed out. "We should at least get him some pain relief. Shame you don't have any more cocaine on you Professor."

"What?" Harold frowned, bewildered.

"We shouldn't stop in Bogota." John said. "If they're still looking for us, that will be the first place. They have to know we would want to get out of Venezuela."

"Where would you go?" Harold asked, peering down at the map.

"Quito."

"In Ecuador?" Harold said sceptically.

"Puts a whole country between us and them, we can be there in about twenty-four hours if we keep switching up the driving." John said, his leg was agony and every little bump sent pain shooting through his whole body, but if they got caught because he was thinking of himself then it would be one more thing he would never be able to forgive himself for.

"It's too far." Harold said, horrified. "John, you need medical attention before then." There was a pause as it looked like neither of them were going to budge on this.

"It's your call Sameen." Lionel said. "You've not steered us wrong so far."

Sameen sighed and tied off the bandage. She tugged up John's shirt and tugged down the soiled bandage to inspect the gash at his hip. It had bled heavily at some point and the dressing was stuck to it with dried blood. "Some graze," she muttered, "but it looks clean." She turned to face the others, "Okay, we need to swap cars in the next town. We can't cross the border in a government vehicle full of bullet holes. And then we drive to Quito."

Harold nodded, accepting defeat. "I'll drive a while."

"Fusco, you take up front. I can finish here while you're on the move." She pulled another couple of antiseptic wipes out of the bag, "Hold your shirt up for me," she ordered. John did as he was told. The other two got into the cab and in a minute they were on the move again.

They fell into silence as Sameen peeled the dirty bandage away and cleaned it out. John rested his head back against the cab and let her work, feeling the tender touch of her fingers ghosting across his stomach as she wiped encrusted blood away. It should have been intimate, but they'd never had that kind of relationship and it was nice to be touched without the pressure of anything romantic. Physical contact was never something he thought much about, the lack of it in his life didn't bother him until he was reminded of what he was missing. Touch was something that normal people took for granted, it was the way people comforted each other, showed each other they weren't alone. He had long ago stopped thinking he deserved such treatment.

Sameen finished by wrapping a fresh bandage round his waist and then sitting back. "Are you okay?"

John cracked his eyes back open and stared at her. "We can't cross the border on the road. There'll be checkpoints…"

"Brought our passports with us," she replied. "We'll tell them we were victims of a botched robbery." John could see the relief on her face at not having to discuss his feelings.

"Finch and I don't have visas, we'll be arrested."

Sameen delved into the bag, searched in a hidden pocket in the lining and pulled one out, handing it over. John flicked through it, it was his, or at least it was John Warren's, and there among the pages was a visa dated for the day that they'd been kidnapped.

"I met your guy in Caracas. One day you're going to tell us why you're friends with Venezuelan gangsters."

"It wasn't the gangsters I was friends with," he replied glumly.

"Hold on," Sameen exclaimed, "is all this misery because of the kid? You know he's alive, right?"

John stared at her, unable to believe he'd heard her correctly. "Are you sure?" he asked, his voice suddenly rough with repressed emotion.

Sameen nodded, "According to his uncle, he was shot in the chest. He's in for a long fight but after he got through the first surgery they were hopeful."

John let out a harsh breath and ran a hand over his face. It felt like the first real breath he'd been able to take since he'd watched the skinny boy fall on that roof, like a crushing weight had been released from his chest. He felt his eyes begin to prickle so he closed his eyes and rested his head back against the cab while he composed himself.

He felt Sameen somewhat roughly plaster a steri-strip over the cut on his eyebrow without warning. "Try and get some rest," she said, patting his shoulder in an awkward display of affection, "it's almost all over."


	23. Epilogue

Epilogue  
Five Weeks Later

John swung himself down the corridor, moving fast on his crutches and managing to avoid the chaos that he'd been presented with. He had hoped that it would calm down once he'd made it out of the main entrance to the hospital and found his way to the paediatric floor, but here there was just as much pandemonium. Wards were overflowing, with kids laying in beds that had been parked up in corridors, entire families were crowded in amongst them or camped out in the small waiting room, overworked and stressed-looking nurses worked between them. It reminded him of a hospital in a war zone and his first thought was that there must have been some sort of disaster that he hadn't heard about. It was a world away from the clean and efficient hospital in Quito that he had spent a lot of the last five weeks in. But it soon became quickly apparent that this was an average day at Caracas' cash-strapped biggest hospital.

The last five weeks had been hard work for all involved. He'd had three operations on his knee as they'd struggled to repair the damage the bullet had done at such close range, and he knew he'd been less than grateful. He hated being trapped in bed, had refused the wheelchair and had argued with the physiotherapist about how hard he should be pushing himself at every turn. Sameen and Lionel had made their excuses and hightailed it quickly to get back to New York, leaving Harold to try to keep the peace between the medical staff and their restless and sulky patient. It had become easier as he'd been allowed to move to the hotel, Harold had rented a car and they'd spent the days between appointments exploring the beautiful countryside. But he'd known he would still be unable to settle until he did this.

He found the room he was looking for and paused a moment to peer through the window. He was suddenly gripped with the idea that he shouldn't have come. Why did he ever think that they would want him anywhere near them again? But he knew he would never be able to come to terms with what had happened if he didn't see for himself. The room was busy, with eight beds in it, all but one had a small family crammed around the children's bed on plastic chairs. He felt a pang of sympathy for the sick kids and the people who were caring for them. He often felt that life was rarely fair, and it was never more apparent than right at that moment.

He found who he was looking for at the back of the room by the window. Young Juan was sat propped up in bed on a stack of pillows, bare chested save for the bandages that covered his skinny chest. He had a nasal cannula on, but otherwise looked to be one of the healthier kids in the room. His mother, Carmella, was sat beside him dressed casually in jeans and a tee shirt. She had a book in her hands and the pair of them were hunched close as they read it together, the sunlight falling on their faces and warming the room.

John lost track of how long he had stood there, but eventually a voice broke him out of his thoughts.

"You should go in."

John turned to face Luiz who had come up beside him. John studied him, the man looked weary but the anger he expected wasn't there.

"I'm so sorry," John started. "I should never have let you get caught up in this."

"No, you shouldn't have." Luiz agreed. "But you didn't shoot my son, the government did."

"The men who did this, they're dead." John told him. Part of him had wished to be the one to have taken the man responsible down, but in the end he'd accepted that the important thing was that the soldier was no longer be around to do such a horrific thing again.

"That doesn't make me feel better." Luiz replied. He nudged John towards the door.

John gave him a grim look and then entered the room, limping along, still unable to put much weight on his heavily strapped knee. Carmella looked up at the noise of the crutches and the book she was holding fell from her hands. She stood up and rushed forward, wrapping John in a hug. He'd been prepared for nasty words or cold looks, maybe even to have that book thrown at him. The display of affection threw him and he didn't know how to handle it. He stood stiffly, wrapping an arm around her waist to return the gesture only after he had taken a moment to deal with his shock.

"I had no idea what had happened to you, I thought you were dead." Carmella said, pulling back to take a look at him. The cuts and bruises had nearly healed but there were still traces of the damage he'd been subjected to.

"I'm so sorry." John said.

Carmella smiled at her son, "Saluda a John." [Say hello to John.]

The boy smiled and waved timidly.

Carmella smiled, "He's shy. He's been talking about you non-stop. He even likes his scar because he says it's like yours."

John frowned at that, he'd never considered himself a role model, and he was so sure the kid had every right to hate him. In fact, the idea that any child might want to be like him made him feel physically sick. "He's a tough kid."

"Takes after the man I named him for."

John found his smile and struggled over to sit beside the boy, "Hola Juan," he reached down for the abandoned book on the floor. "¿Qué estás leyendo?" [What are you reading?]  
***

An hour later, John hobbled out of the hospital to find a familiar figure sat on a park bench, a laptop balanced precariously on his lap. He sat down beside him and had a quick glance over at the screen.

"How did it go?" Harold twisted awkwardly to see him.

John nodded, finding the words, "That kid is pretty amazing. He's had some complications but he's going to be just fine."

"While you were inside I've been doing some research." Harold said.

John smirked, what else was new?

"It appears that Carmella and Luiz have been leading the fundraising for the victims of the fire. When they next check the funding site, they're going to find a large anonymous donation. It should be enough to completely rebuild the homes that were lost. Plus, enough to significantly improve the after-school programme that they run in their spare time."

John broke out a rare grin. "Thank you, Harold."

Harold flipped the laptop closed and stood. "Ready to go?"

John got to his feet and together they limped down the steps towards the taxi rank outside the hospital. It was a sunny day, and despite everything that had happened here, the weather was managing to make the city look bright and pleasant. Falling into step with his shorter friend, John felt a calm that he'd not experienced in some time. He was never one to have felt a particular longing for home, but this time, it felt good to be going back to New York.

"The light aircraft I've chartered should be ready to go as soon as we get to the airfield." Harold explained. "I thought I'd fly myself if that's alright with you. But please don't make me jump out of this one."

John looked at him and laughed. "Only if your flying is as bad as your driving, Finch."

Harold cocked his head and gave him a look of distain. "I meant to ask, what did Fusco mean about the cocaine?"

John clambered into the taxi and shuffled over to make room for his friend. "I'll tell you when we're in the air," he promised. "That way you're less likely to leave me behind."

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've made it this far, then thank you. I hope you enjoyed it. It's been fun to write, especially as I've used a lot of my own travels and experiences to get it right. It'd be great if you could drop me a line and let me know what you thought.  
> Many thanks xx


End file.
